


If Without Us

by YunhosFlower



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22221649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YunhosFlower/pseuds/YunhosFlower
Summary: A twisting trail of secrets exposed and lies unravelled became her new life when she found a missing part of her history that she'd long ago given up on retrieving.Can he rescue her from the depths of it? Can he protect her in the times that even her last family member can't?Can she return the favour?
Relationships: Choi San/Reader, Park Seonghwa/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

You let out a heavy sigh, crossing your arms over your chest and staring ahead of you at the messy row of books that had been further messed up by your roommate.   
  
“San!” You yelled out, twisting and starting in surprise to find an unfamiliar lingering in your doorway, his dark hair hanging to one side of his forehead and eyes darting anxiously between you and his fist, which was raised to the door in a knocking motion that clearly hadn’t had the chance to be lived through yet.   
  
Slowly he dropped his fist, flattening it out and shoving his hand into his pocket.   
  
“Who are you?” You asked slowly, blinking and trying to clear your head. To say you felt confused might be an understatement.   
  
He visibly swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.   
  
“Uh, I’m Seonghwa. Hi.” He slowly lifted his hand out of his pocket in a little wave, hurriedly shoving it back into his pocket when it was met with a blank stare.   
  
You didn’t _mean_ to make him feel so uncomfortable, but then again he was the stranger in _your_ apartment so you figured you had the right to be uneasy.   
  
“Right.. Seonghwa.” You tested out his name on your lips, frowning.   
  
Saying it aloud didn’t make it any more familiar to you at all.   
  
“I don’t know you?” It was half a statement and half a question, you weren’t exactly known for having a photographic memory, although you couldn’t believe that you’d forget someone with looks like this Seonghwa had.   
  
Seonghwa shook his head, swallowing again and trying out a tiny smile at you that, much like his earlier attempt at being friendly, was quickly swept back under an uncomfortable expression.   
  
“Hwa where-” The familiar high toned voice of your roommate, San, broke through the awkward silence, his head popping up around the other side of your doorway, looking first at Seonghwa then at you.   
  
“Ah.” He said, grimacing and straightening his body so that it filled the remainder of your doorway.   
  
You raised an eyebrow slowly, finally understanding.  
  
Your confusion grew to irritation as you stared at San.   
  
You’d both agreed quite a while ago not to invite friends, or more, into your shared apartment to avoid uncomfortably sticky situations, just like the one you were currently in.   
  
“Wait!” He said, throwing up his hands defensively when you began to round on him, muttering a string of curse words below your breath. “He has nowhere else to stay Y/n!”   
  
By ‘he’ San must be referring to Seonghwa, who looked positively baffled out of his mind now, his dark eyes fixed on you, widened impossibly at least half their previous size,maybe in an effort to keep your angry figure in his sights.   
  
Guiltily you dropped your hands, clasping them behind your back and finally offering him a little smile.   
  
“Doesn’t mean we didn’t have an agreement.” You hissed out through your teeth to San, trying to maintain the smile and also get across your anger with your roommate. “You could have at least _told_ me.”   
  
San clucked his tongue, pulling at his friend’s arm lightly. Seonghwa easily let himself be moved outside into the hallway, casting you one more gaze, bordering between unease and a blatant curiosity that might have made you flush in another situation.   
  
There was something intensely attractive about him that was probably a bigger part of why you didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of sharing your apartment with him.   
  
Living with San was hard enough, although he was entertainingly sloppy and at times surprisingly shy, he was also undeniably attractive. His delicate features, including the adorable dimples that punctured both cheeks and the subtle muscles in his upper arms, were something that you were sure would have hundreds of girls at his feet, if he were interested.  
  
“Y/n, please.” San begged, as quietly as his voice would allow him, his eyes holding yours desperately. You jut your bottom lip out, sighing.   
  
The moment he’d said that Seonghwa had nowhere else to stay, your heart had softened enough to allow you to agree to him staying, but San didn’t need to know it was that easy to sway you.   
  
“Where is he gonna sleep San?” You crossed your arms tightly, planting your feet firmly below you. San winced, almost as if you’d thrown him an open handed blow, his nose wrinkling as he tried to think.   
  
“Uh.. there’s the.. sofa..” He muttered, dropping his head and rubbing his neck. You scoffed, thoughts wandering back to when you’d first moved in here, with no bed, and had had to settle for sleeping on that sofa.  
  
You wouldn’t wish that on your worst enemy.   
  
“Try again.” You tapped your foot, watching him squirm with a slight sense of satisfaction.   
  
“He can.. take my bed.” He finally spat out, glaring up at you through his lashes.   
  
You grinned at him, shrugging your left shoulder.  
  
“You’re the one who wants him to stay.”   
  
“Well why do you even care where he sleeps!” San threw his hands up in exasperation, his dark hair swishing across his forehead and briefly obscuring the half hearted fiery look in his eyes.   
  
You bit your tongue to prevent yourself from pointing out aloud to him that you’d much rather walk past the lounge room and accidentally walk in on him than on his poor friend who was already clearly wary enough of you.   
  
“I don’t, unlike you I just have a general care for other humans.” You hummed, smiling at him and patting his shoulder when he let out an annoyed splutter. “He can stay, just make sure he’s comfortable.”   
  
“You’re impossible.” San muttered before swiftly turning and heading out of your doorway, grabbing onto Seonghwa’s elbow in a grip tight enough for the dark haired boy’s face to twist a little in pain.   
  
You peered after their retreating figures, shaking your head to yourself.   
  
After all of that you hadn’t even gotten the chance to berate San for leaving your books a mess in his efforts to find whatever he’d been looking for earlier.   
  
Although after that conversation, you did feel that you’d somewhat avenged the normally tidy part of your room.   
  
-=<>=-  
  
  
By 1am you were ready to leave the relative warmth and safety of your bedroom and storm into the lounge room and kick _San_ out of his own apartment.   
  
The only thing you’d been able to hear for the past two hours was his high voice complaining, not so quietly, into his phone to another one of his friends.   
  
You grabbed a pillow, shoving it desperately over your ears in an effort to block him out.   
  
The thick fluff did almost nothing to shield you from his deep, annoyed scoffs echoing up and down the hall.   
  
“What the hell does he even have to be complaining about at one in the morning?” You groaned into the pillow, sitting up and throwing it at the door.   
  
For a minuscule second silence followed and your muscles relaxed in relief, an exhale halfway out of your lips before a high pitched laugh split the air from the direction of the lounge room.   
  
The exhale turned into an annoyed hiss and in seconds you were on your feet, hand ripping your door open and propelling yourself through the doorway.   
  
Directly into a warm mass that let out a shocked and slightly pained grunt.   
  
Thrown by the lack of light and the feeling of unfamiliar hands gripping onto your waist to keep both of you from falling, you let out a tiny screech.   
  
“Sh!” Warm breath fanned your face and one of the hands lifted from your waist to cover your mouth. “It’s me! Seonghwa!”   
  
You rolled your eyes, despite the gesture going unseen thanks to the shroud of darkness around you.   
  
Knowing who it was didn’t make the situation any less ridiculous, nor did it slow the unsteady fast paced thump of your heart in your chest.   
  
“What are you doing outside my room?” You asked heatedly, jerking your head back to free your mouth of his hold and as if realising what he was doing he moved back, hand slipping quickly from your side.   
  
“I was on my way to ask San to shut up.” He said quietly, soft voice seeming to come from a thousand different directions. You shook your head violently, putting it down to the lack of sleep you’d gotten, feeling a reluctant gratitude for him for having been about to do you both a favour; even if you’d also been about to do it.   
  
“Well..” You swallowed when your eyes finally adjusted to the darkness of the hall, gaze falling on Seonghwa’s surprisingly clothes lacking upper body.   
  
“OH MY GOD!” You squeaked throwing your hands up over your eyes in a futile attempt to unsee the bare curves of his chest.   
  
“Sorry! God, sorry! I totally-” Seonghwa groaned, the sound slightly muffled as if it had been into his hands.   
  
You didn’t bother trying to peek and confirm that suspicion, because that would mean that you’d see his bare chest again and you weren’t entirely sure that you could handle that right now.   
  
“It’s fine- I should go,” you choked out, keeping one hand spanned over your eyes and the other feeling out behind you for the wall or lack thereof to get you back into your room.   
  
“You’re going the wrong way.” Seonghwa sighed, the warmth of his fingers sliding tightly around your outstretched wrist and guiding you with gentle force in the complete opposite direction than you’d been heading.   
  
You were pretty sure that with his fingertips resting just above the pulse point in your wrist, he would be able to tell that just his touch was sending your heart into overdrive.   
  
“Here, you can look now.” His hands turned your body by twisting your shoulders carefully, his voice fading slightly as you were moved away from him.   
  
You peeked through your fingertips, heaving a soft sigh of relief when all that you saw was the interior of your room, lit softly by your laptop screen which you’d left open on your bedside table.   
  
You were still highly aware of his hands resting on your shoulders, making your breathing stutter in and out unevenly.   
  
“Thanks.” You muttered, glad that you were facing away from him so that he was unable to see the red tinge on your cheeks.   
  
You felt him chuckle more than you heard it, the sound vibrating through his hands into your shoulder blades.   
  
“You’re welcome,” His hands finally released you and a few soft steps took him further away from you, helping ease your breathing somewhat.   
  
And then they stopped.   
  
“I’m really sorry.” He said softly, you almost _feel_ the apology in the air that you sucked in. “Both for running into you half naked and for being here in the first place.”   
  
Without thinking, you spun to face him, eyebrows drawn together.   
  
His back was to you now and you could see every delicate slop of his well built back, and the way that his broad shoulders tapered to a thin waist.   
  
And you could see the scar that stretched from one shoulder to the centre of his spine, snatching your breath out of your throat in a painful swipe.   
  
Thinking even less than you had, possibly in your entire life combined, you stepped forward, covering the gap between you.   
  
Your hand reached out before you could even process what you were doing, your fingers lightly brushing against his bare skin.   
  
You’d expected it to be cold, him being shirtless and all in this weather, but it was as warm as his hands had been.   
  
He tensed visibly below your curious fingertips, although he didn’t move from his spot, seeming almost frozen in place as your index followed the trail of the scar wordlessly.  
  
You both felt and heard him suck in a hiss of air when your hand reached the end of the scar, your palm flattening against the bottom of his spine.   
  
“Stop.” He said in a tight voice, as tense as a coiled spring below you.   
  
Part of you wondered what he’d do if you kept going… another part didn’t want to find out.   
  
You snatched your hand back, biting down hard on your lip.   
  
“Sorry.” You breathed out, finding a slight sense of pleasure in watching the muscles in his back spasm slightly when the warmth of your breath hit his skin.   
  
“Just.” He turned, eyes almost nothing more than slits now, glittering with something that you couldn’t quite put a name too, although the closest you could come was suspicion.   
  
Thought what he had to be suspicious of, you had no idea.   
  
“Don’t do that.” He said slowly, holding your eyes seriously, his chest rising and falling evenly; unlike yours.   
  
“I got it.” You murmured, being the first to look away, your mouth dry.   
  
“Goodnight, Y/n.” Seonghwa muttered, backing out of the room slowly. The sounds of San chuckling from the lounge room, which up until now had somehow become background noise, seemed to fill the room once again and both you and Seonghwa grimaced.   
  
“San,” You heard him yell out as he shut the door behind, or rather in front of him, putting himself on the opposite side to you, enabling you to finally release the breath you hadn’t known you were holding so fervently onto.   
  
“What the _fuck_ just happened?” You muttered to yourself, flopping back onto your bed. 


	2. Chapter 2

You couldn’t have pinpointed the moment you finally fell asleep after what seemed like endless tossing and turning in your sheets, mind filled with thoughts about the scar on Seonghwa’s back.   
  
He seemed like a nice guy, so how the hell did a scar like that end up on his back.   
  
You knew San’s lifestyle was often far from safe most of the time, a huge part of why you’d made him agree that neither of you would ever have surprise guests staying over.   
  
But you’d thought, at least on first glance, that Seonghwa couldn’t possibly be a part of that life.   
  
Now you weren’t so sure.   
  
“Y/n are you gonna get up?” San barely knocked before shoving his messy haired head into your room, his shoulder knocking the door almost completely open.   
  
You seriously considered taking your pillow and slamming it into his face, repeatedly and violently, until you caught sight of Seonghwa’s dark haired head shifting past San’s back, face turned away as if to give you privacy.   
  
All violent thoughts raced out of your head, your cheeks glowing a furious red as you struggled to keep out the memory of his smooth skinned back below your hands.   
  
“Get out.” You hissed at San, raising your pillow threateningly once you’d gained control of yourself. He raised an eyebrow, ducking a second too late when you’d counted to ten inwardly and decided that was enough warning to throw the pillow.   
  
It smacked him soundly in the face, earning a disgruntled growl from the small figure.   
  
“What the _hell_ Y/n!” He glared at you, snatching the pillow off of the ground and advancing towards you. Your eyes widened and you raised your arms defensively.  
  
“Get out!” You repeated in a screech, rolling yourself out of the way just in time to avoid becoming the battered pillow’s next victim, wincing at the hard thump it made on connection with the space you’d just been in.   
  
“I hate you sometimes.” He muttered, running his fingers through his lengthy hair and stalking out, leaving the door wide open, most likely to spite you considering the amount of times you’d yelled at him in the past for doing it.   
  
Rolling your eyes and letting loose a long yawn you clambered out of the warmth of your bed, stretching your limbs against the foot of it.   
  
When you stood back up straight, muscles satisfied and bones no longer so cramped, you caught another brief glimpse of Seonghwa slipping from the living room to the kitchen, also stretching, his arms lifted up above his head.   
  
Even from here, with sleep still blurring half your vision, you could easily make out the condensed muscles and strength behind those arms. The arms of someone who didn’t live an easy life but one where he pulled his own weight, probably literally.  
  
So how had you not seen it when you first met him?   
  
You shook your head to clear it, forcing yourself to wander out into the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the bowl that normally was stocked with a lot more than just apples.   
  
Soft flesh met your fingertips and you let out a tiny shriek of disgust, dropping the apple immediately. It landed on the floor with a muted crunch, rolling until you saw that one side of it was completely rotten; the side that you’d dug your fingers into.   
  
“What did the apple ever do to you?” San half heartedly joked from behind the fridge door, peering thoughtfully down at the apple on the ground. “And I’m not cleaning that up.”   
  
You simply rolled your eyes, turning to reach for a handful of paper towel, only to find Seonghwa snatching it out of your reach and kneeling beside the mess you’d created on the floor.   
  
He was clearly trying to withhold an amused smirk, unwinding a few layers of paper and wrapping it deftly around his slender fingers.   
  
“Didn’t take you for someone so squeamish.” He noted lightly as he scraped at the mushed side of the apple, using his free hard to collect the semi hard piece from the floor.   
  
Your first reaction was to snap that he didn’t know you, but it was buried below your embarrassment at your actions last night.   
  
“I’m not.” You muttered, snatching the roll of paper up from beside him and returning it to its normal place on the bench, catching San’s amused glance at you.   
  
You glared at him until he looked away, snorting softly like he’d figured something out that you were yet to grasp.   
  
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Seonghwa smiled, quirking a dark brow at you before dropping his handful of apple and paper towel into the trashcan, his gaze not leaving yours until he turned to face San.   
  
Frozen to the spot, trying to understand the meaning behind his words and attitude, you almost missed catching the box of cereal that San threw to, or at, you over Seonghwa’s head.   
  
“Eat, you’ve got a date tonight right?” He said, wriggling his brows at you when you stared incredulously between him and the box of cereal dangling in your fingertips.   
  
“I hate this cereal- How did you know about my date?” You asked suspiciously, putting the box on the bench and reluctantly searching for a bowl and spoon.   
  
“Does it matter? I just know. We both know you get grumpy if you don’t eat _something_ in the morning.”  
  
You did hate the cereal, but begrudgingly you had to admit he had a point. No matter how much you ate throughout a day, if you missed breakfast you were 90% likely to be in a crappy mood by the end of it.   
  
Though you could barely care less for this date tonight, it was really nothing more than a means to get out of the house for once, you didn’t particularly want to put the poor guy through your intimidating mood swings.   
  
“Give her the milk.” San smirked, pushing the half full carton into Seonghwa’s hands, leaving his friend standing confused in the centre of the kitchen as he swaggered his way out, the fridge door just barely closing by the time he was in his own room, likely looking for clothes to wear that weren’t what he slept in.   
  
“Uh,” Seonghwa swung to face you, holding the carton up almost defensively. All traces of the amused and somewhat smug expression earlier had disappeared, replaced with uncertainty. You pursed your lips to hide a smile, sticking your hand out to take the carton from him.   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
“Sure…” He mumbled, watching you pour milk over the cereal. A small smile flickered across his lips briefly, almost as if he were remembering something, then it was gone.   
  
“What?’ You asked self consciously, pushing the cereal around the bowl while you watched his handsome face.   
  
He shook his head, picking the milk back up and returning it to the fridge, surprisingly finding the correct space for it instantly.   
  
Even San couldn’t boast that quality for himself, rarely placing anything back where it belonged. And not just in regards to the fridge.   
  
“I was just reminded of a friend.” He hummed in response to your question, eyes darting to your stilled hand. “He used to pour milk first, then the cereal.”  
  
Your nose wrinkled in disgust, your mind trying to comprehend that logic.   
  
“Right?” Seonghwa laughed at your reaction, the sound filling you like helium in a balloon. You could get addicted to the sound of his laugh.   
  
‘Stop it.’ You reprimanded yourself, forcing a mouthful of cereal into your mouth and chewing stoically around the disgusting taste that invaded your taste buds.   
  
“Wow you really don’t like it huh?” He grinned, watching your face contort with every chew. You were almost ready to tip the rest of it out down the sink when he leaned in, stole your spoon and scooped some into his own mouth.   
  
You gaped at him as he chewed, replacing the spoon back in your bowl like what he’d just done was entirely normal for two strangers that barely knew one another.   
  
His nose scrunched as he swallowed and he shook his head fervently.   
  
“Oh you’re right, that is disgusting. People shouldn’t have to eat tha-” He froze at the expression on your face, looking like a stunned rabbit under the incredulous look on your features.   
  
For a moment you thought he might apologise, the tips of his ears reddening and his hands reaching up to run through his dark hair in a slow motion.   
  
But then he was taking a deep breath and smiling, like he’d just had a whole inner conversation about remaining some kind of douchebag and turned, walking with a little too much speed to be as comfortable as he was trying to act with what he’d done.   
  
You stared down at your unfinished bowl, stomaching rolling.   
  
He was good looking, and under normal circumstances what he’d just done might have been highly attractive to you.   
  
Hell, it still was.   
  
But you couldn’t ignore the tiny seed of doubt in your stomach that had been planted last night by the sight of his scar, that had been flourishing overnight inside you.   
  
You didn’t want to be involved in the dark side of San’s life and throughout the last few years as his roommate you’d done your best to swerve from it and he’d done his best to protect you from it all.  
  
Of course it wasn’t an entirely bulletproof plan, there were times when San came home too late, trying his best, and failing, to hide his bruised and bloody face or body from you.   
  
There were moments when, despite his all round goofiness and soft boy attitude, a hardness would enter San’s eyes that you couldn’t deny intimidated and scared the life out of you.   
  
You had to believe that he would never purposefully endanger you, because if you didn’t then you might go out of your mind with worry over every second thing he did.   
  


This was the first time throughout your years with him that he’d ever done something that made you feel unsafe, that outright breached the line that had been established between his life outside this apartment and his life inside it.   
  
And you didn’t know what that meant.   
  
-=o=-

“Y/N? Is everything okay?” San paused in your doorway, his gaze sweeping over the upturned contents of your room.   
  
You’d at first been looking for a specific jacket to wear tonight.   
  
And then you’d been grabbing things that weren’t clothes and tossing them in any which direction, trying to calm the uneasy thudding of your heart in your chest.   
  
And now you were crouched in the middle of your room, clutching your knees to your chest and forcing deep breaths in and out, that were doing nothing at all to calm you.   
  
“Uh huh.” You managed to get out, staring straight ahead.   
  
You weren’t sure if you were more panicked about actually going on this date tonight, or the fact that you had no idea what was going on with Seonghwa and San.   
  
“Right, you don’t look okay.” San cautiously stepped in and knelt beside you, bumping his shoulder gently against yours. “Do you want me to come with you? Or we can find someone to follow you guys and make sure the guy doesn’t try any weird crap-”  
  
“No!” You exclaimed, snapping somewhat out of it and staring wide eyed at San, who all but pouted at your outright refusal to his offer. “I don’t need to be followed on my date. I’m sure he’s a great guy.”   
  
San shrugged, trying to look nonchalant but failing inexplicably when his pout remained in place.  
  
“You never know.” He muttered, glancing at you. For a second his expression was so serious that you wanted to fall back onto your ass and rock on the spot.   
  
Somehow you held it together enough to stare back at him, doing your best to assess his expression.   
  
“What?” He asked guardedly, raising his eyebrows at you.   
  
“What aren’t you telling me?” You couldn’t ignore the growing feeling of panic anymore, that completely revolved around him.   
  
He frowned, sighing out through his nose and chewing on his lip.   
  
“I guess you saw his scar then.”   
  
“No shit San, it’s hard to miss.”   
  
San grinned a little, shaking his head as if at an inside joke.   
  
“Well only if he has his shirt off, but yes. It is.”   
  
“Who is he?”   
  
A shadow fell over you both and San instantly shifted himself forward in front of you, protectively, until he realised who it was.   
  
“Park Seonghwa.” Seonghwa said almost cooly from the doorway, leaning his shoulder against it and peering into the destruction around you. “You don’t need to know more than that. It’s better for both of us that way, trust me.”  
  
His eyes held yours over his last two words and the last thing you wanted was to trust him.   
  
How were you supposed to trust someone that you didn’t even know?   
  
Someone who was involved with the one person in your life who had the kind of history that you’d rather avoid than become a part of and wanted to be cryptic about it.   
  
“Then stop talking to me.” You countered Seonghwa, earning a tsk from him and a sideways smirk from San. You didn’t care that you were being blatantly childish, what you cared about was the fact that you were the only one in this room with absolutely no idea what the dark haired boy who seemed to have a split personality, was dong in _your_ apartment.   
  
He stepped further into your room, eyes on you as he invaded the only space in this entire apartment that you had always confidently owned as your own and nobody elses.   
  
The way his body slid into it without a thought, with so much ease, made it much less your ground than it was his.   
  
“I’m here because _you_ need protecting.” He said softly and slowly, eyes narrowing until he went from boyish man to deadly thug with insanely good looks.  
  
From the corner of your eye you saw San tense, his hand half curling into a fist.   
  
“Enough, Hwa.” He said warningly, glancing at you.   
  
You couldn’t tell which one of you was more on edge, you or San.   
  
You who had so little to your name, who wouldn’t be noticed if someone decided to kill her.   
  
And San, who already had so many secrets he must be drowning in them.   
  
“Why not, she’s so desperate to know.” Seonghwa drawled, icily sliding his gaze from you to San in a heartbeat, his brow quirking. “She’ll figure it out herself soon enough.”   
  
His words sent a cold stab of fear through you and a soft whimper that made you want to bury yourself into the ground and never been seen again, escaped you. San’s arm slid instantly around your shoulder, drawing your body against his in a one armed attempt to console you.   
  
“Because she’s _my_ friend, so we’ll tell her when I say so, not when you get bored of having to keep secrets.” San spat, so much anger and venom in his voice that you recoiled from him.   
  
You’d known there was this side to him, you couldn’t have lived with him and not known even if you’d never seen it. 

  
But seeing it, seeing it was so much different to imagining it.   
  
“You think this is about me being bored of keeping secrets?!” Seonghwa looked for a moment completely stunned, rocking back on his heels as he looked between the two of you. He shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t care less about that. What I care about is her.”   
  
And then he was walking out, leaving not just one shocked body behind him, but two.   
  
You looked tentatively over at your friend, trying to gauge his emotions on that stone cold canvas.   
  
“Be careful.” He said simply to you as he stood, dusting dust from his jeans and casting a final look around at the destruction of your room.   
  
“I’ll clean this up for you while you’re out.”   
  
You resisted the urge to beg him not to do that.   
  
You were pretty positive that any attempt on his behalf to ‘clean’ was going to end in a bigger mess than there had been to begin with.   
  
But you didn’t want to risk shattering the fragile smile on his face, that looked half like a smile and half like a mask constructed of fine wires of patience, ready to snap at any moment.   
  
You might believe he would never hurt you, but you didn’t exactly want to take any chances on that.  
  
-=o=-

  
“Hey!” You sucked in a deep breath and forced a smile onto your mouth, eyes fixing on your date, who you noticed not for the first time was nearly the exact same height as San.   
  
“Y/n.” He smiled warmly, eyes sparkling almost unnaturally as he stepped out from the shadow of your apartment building. You started in surprise when the light hit his hair, illuminating the dark blonde of it.   
  
“You dyed your hair?” You asked, lingering in the doorway of the building entrance. He paused in front of you, pursing his thick lips slightly.   
  
You couldn’t figure out why the hell the change in his hair had created a cavern of unease inside your chest.   
  
Well, rather it had deepened the existing hole.   
  
“Yeah,” He said slowly, almost more like a question than an answer, like he was trying to figure out why you cared so much or how much to say about it. “I just needed a change.”   
  
You swallowed and nodded, the forced smile slipping somewhat.   
  
“I liked the black.” You mumbled. For a second his own smile slipped, revealing the barest glimpse of a cold stare below that made you want to turn back around and go home. “But blonde looks good too!”  
  
“We should get going.” He said quietly, the smile returned back into place almost as if it had never left, extending his hand towards you expectantly.   
  
You stared silently at it for a moment before taking it.   
  
You couldn’t go back to your apartment because inside it was Seonghwa, someone that you barely knew but who had already tipped your life upside down, and San who you didn’t even want to think about right now.   
  
You were determined not to let what Seonghwa had said to you earlier get to you, which meant pushing back your irrational mistrust of someone that you’d been perfectly fine with when you’d accepted his invitation out tonight.   
  
“You know, we’ve worked together in that convenience store for like two months,” You said thoughtfully as the two of you walked, his hand wrapped almost too tightly around yours. “And I don’t even know your name.”   
  
He glanced at you, chuckling quietly.   
  
In hindsight, that was maybe something you should have thought about when he had asked you on a date out of the blue the other night.   
  
But up until today things like that just hadn’t mattered to you.   
  
And now… now they did.   
  
He squeezed your hand, quickening his pace and for a moment you thought he wasn’t going to answer you, that maybe he hadn’t actually heard your question.   
  
And then he was pausing in front of a small cafe, one that you’d never seen before let alone gone to for _dinner_ and turning to look at you, the tiniest of smirks lifting the corner of his lips.   
  
  
“I’m Wooyoung.”   



	3. Chapter 3

“You should have stayed home, princess.” An unfamiliar and snide voice drawled to you and you squirmed in place, hands tucked securely behind you by Wooyoung’s hands.   
  
The blindfold shoved across your eyes prevented you from being able to see, so you had no idea where you were now, although you doubted it much mattered.   
  
Knowing where your seemingly normal date had dragged you to before drawing a knife to your throat and blindfolding you barely seemed important in the light of the fact you were probably going to die in a few moments.   
  
You chose not to answer the new voice, mostly because you could feel the cold steel blade pressed tightly against the skin of your throat. Any movement on your behalf would almost definitely cause the sharp edge to slice through the skin and you didn’t know how deep it had to go to cut through important veins but you doubted it was far from the first few layers of skin that protected your vocal chords.   
  
“Smart girl.” Wooyoung cooed into your ear, sending shivers of both disgust and fear down your spin as he held you to him. Likely he was also the one holding the blade to your neck, because there was definitely only one hand pinning yours behind you.   
  
Not that the fact there was only one meant anything, he had clearly demonstrated more than enough strength in his thumb alone to prevent you even entertaining the idea of overpowering him.   
  
Just minutes ago he’d been nothing but the guy from your part time job that had wanted to go out on a date with you. 

  
A minute ago the biggest worry you had was the fact that your room mate had brought someone with a clearly dark past into your life and now it was whether you could swallow the fear induced spit collecting in your mouth without the knife pressed to your throat killing you.   
  
You could feel Wooyoung’s warm breath on the back of your neck and the utter closeness of his body made you want to sob.   
  
Multiple things about things right now made you want to sob.  
  
Somewhere very far in the back of your mind you remembered Seonghwa’s words to you earlier, which felt more like a warning now than the attempt to scare you that you’d thought they were earlier.   
  
_I’m here because you need protecting.  
  
_ Maybe if you had of let that scare you as much as it was intended to, you would have stayed home tonight rather than go on your date and end up in the situation you were in.   
  
You tried desperately to understand what it could mean, how his warning could be in any way linked to the fact you were blindfolded and under knife point right now but you couldn’t.   
  
The most dangerous thing you’d done with your life until now was chancing spending half your weekly pay check on a lottery ticket, meaning if you didn’t want anything back you’d go without eating for a week.   
  
There was nothing that you could have done to put you in the bad books of someone like these guys, like San’s friends.   
  
San.   
  
A choked breath escaped through your pressed lips, eyes filling with confused tears.   
  
Surely… He can’t be the one behind this?   


Your dimpled roommate with the sweet smile and protective hugs.   
  
The same roommate who was your only link to this world, the world of blood and violence.   
  
The roommate who had coincidentally brought some absolute stranger with a possibly darker past than his into your life.   
  
San, who had so many things to hide that sometimes you weren’t sure if he even knew reality from the lies anymore.   
  
“She’s crying,” A new and equally unfamiliar to you as the first, voice spoke. This voice was deeper and slower, maybe even gentler. But it also rang with boredom, something that you didn’t need to know this world well to know could really only bode badly for the victim ; you were the victim.   
  
“So she is.” The first voice agreed, not nearly as bored as the second, although the eagerness with which he agreed didn’t feel like you were any safer in his hands than the second voice’s and you felt Wooyoung scoff behind you, his chest bumping forward against your back.   
  
The knife edge lifted somewhat off of your neck, giving the freedom to draw in trembling lungfuls of air that quickly transitioned into weak sobs.   
  
“Shut her up Wooyoung.” The first voice, who you were starting to figure must be the one in charge judging by the amount of authority that laced his voice and the rapid pace at which Wooyoung hurried to meet his demands, said tightly.   
  
“If you don’t shut up I can promise you that you’ll really have something to cry about.” Wooyoung hissed into the shell of your ear, only spinning you deeper into your panic driven sobs.   
  
“You’re going to kill me anyway, just get it over with.” You gasped when he adjusted his grip on the knife handle, consequentially cutting into the first thin layer of skin. It hurt less than you’d expected, although clearly there was a bit more between the sharp edge and your vital veins than you’d thought.   
  
But it still hurt and the initial sting was soon followed by a dull ache and warmth spreading down to your collarbone from the incision in what you assumed would be small trickles of bright red blood.   
  
Clearly the other two onlookers were also listening in on your conversation with Wooyoung because a deep snicker echoed from somewhere ahead of you and strong fingers gripped your chin with enough force to make you wince, neck pressing dangerously hard against the blade.   
  
“Sweetheart, if we wanted you dead, you would be dead.” The deep voice purred, fingers digging so deep into the skin of your chin that you were sure they weren’t far off crushing the bones below it.   
  
More tears slid down your cheek.  
  
The worst part right now wasn’t that you had a cut across your neck, nor that your hands ached from Wooyoung’s unrelenting hard grip or even the pain of this new comer’s grip on your face.   
  
The worst part was that still you couldn’t see a single thing, not even a simple silhouette made it through the dark heavy material clothing your eyes.   
  
“Then what do you want.” You choked, aiming for more angry than pitiful and falling shamefully short. A crying puppy would have sounded more intimidating than you did.   
  
“Yeosang let her go.” The first voice, the one who seemed to hold the power here, commanded and for a moment the grip tightened to a whole new level of painful before letting go.   
  
So Yeosang was the one with the deep voice.   
  
That was two out of three names to fit voices, now you just needed to figure out the leader’s, although what good it did you to know who was going to kill you, you didn’t know.   
  
“Would it make you feel better to know you’re nothing more than a means to end for us?” The leader’s voice came once again, much much closer than it had been moments ago, a finger brushing it’s way from your temple to the corner of your mouth.   
  
You flinched from the contact automatically, earning a tsk of disapproval.   
  
“No.” You muttered in response, trying not to think about what happened to you when whatever part it was that you were supposedly playing for them ceased to be needed.   
  
“Hm,” A chuckle followed by the dance of lips across your jaw, sending unwanted butterflies to your stomach. “As long as San comes looking for his precious girlfriend then we have no reason to hurt you.”   
  
You were torn between relief that there was a silver lining and between the moment shattering realisation that San wasn’t going to come looking for you, much less likely be able to find you even if he did.   
  
“I’m not San’s girlfriend.” You pointed out, swallowing hard. “Why the hell would I agree to go on a date with Wooyoung if I had a boyfriend?” 

  
There was a moment of silence in which your words settled into like dust slowly settling back into place after being disrupted.   
  
It was the kind of silence that felt more dangerous than the quivering edge of a sharp blade against your exposed throat.   
  
“She has a point Hongjoong.” Wooyoung said ever so softly from behind you, his grip on your hands laying the tiniest bit, enough to relieve some of the aching pressure that had been throbbing around his fingertips.   
  
Hongjoong was the leader’s name then.   
  
“So now your brilliant plan is crumbling to dust, again.” Yeosang’s deep voice muttered from somewhere far away, very quickly followed by the sound of flesh against flesh and a grunt of pain that must have come from him.  
  
“He’ll still come for her.” Hongjoong growled, and then suddenly light was flooding your senses, the blindfold ripped from over your eyes to reveal the two men in front of you that you’d heard but not seen yet.   
  
The one who’d ripped the blindfold off of you was undoubtedly the leader, Hongjoong. Though he was significantly shorter than you’d expected, his flame red hair and narrowed eyes were the exact match to his authoritative voice.   
  
He was handsome, as was the figure behind him, nursing his jaw with a scowl, who could only be Yeosang because you knew Wooyoung stood behind you.   
  
“He’ll come for you.” Hongjoong said, throwing the piece of material onto the floor, glaring at you as if you were the one to fault for not being the girlfriend he’d assumed you to be, although there was a sickening look of realisation in those eyes that took away your confidence that he’d lost his edge over you.  
  
“Why would he?” Yeosang muttered, clearly ever the pessimist, barely ducking in time to avoid Hongjoong’s second swing at him, his dark hair disheveled from the sudden movement.   
  
  
For someone with such a horrible attitude, he might just be one of the most handsome people you’d ever laid eyes on.   
  
If he weren’t trying to get you killed, if he didn’t lack the bare essential level of humanity in his eyes that even Hongjoong had, you might have even asked him for his number.   
  
But then, you’d always been inexplicably drawn to bad boys, to the guys that were no good to you or for you.   
  
Wooyoung, clearly seeing more than you’d expected for someone trapped _behind_ you, pulled the blade closer to your already torn skin, hissing.   
  
“Don’t even think about it kitten. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to fraternise with the enemy?” There was a hint of jealousy to his tone that in any other situation would have made you laugh.   
  
Because you were hardly the prize here, even if you were their key to catching your friend, the ultimate prize was nothing more than San himself.   
  
_You_ were nothing special, nothing that any one of these three could get by the thousands just simply by walking into a club on a Friday night.   
  
So really, what did it hurt for you to stare at Yeosang as he straightened, flickering you a dangerous glance filled with interest that definitely had little to do with you and more to do with the fact that you were a female.   
  
To him, having you would be nothing more than a conquest, a triumph over the obviously possessive Wooyoung and an indirect spit to the face of his leader.   
  
And certainly nothing to do with whether he was attracted to _you._  


Hongjoong glanced up, catching the lingering glance that Yeosang threw you and rolling his eyes.   
  
“Enough. Nobody is doing anything to her, especially not before San shows up.”   
  
There it was again, their assumption that Choi San was going to turn up for you, as if you were anything more than a roommate that he could just as easily forget and replace.   
  
He might have protected you from Seonghwa earlier today, he might have at times acted almost like an older brother to you, but you weren’t idiotic enough to presume that meant anything. He had a whole other life, a whole other set of instincts that he would follow before he would pursue the idea of coming after you.   
  
And besides, as far as he knew you’d just been going out on a date tonight, it couldn’t have been more than three hours since you’d left, certainly nowhere long enough for him to start worrying about your lack of presence.   
  
How long did they plan to wait before they decided you’d run out of use to them, before they realised he wasn’t coming for you.   
  
“San isn’t coming!” You told the leader as honestly as you dared, hoping that it would resonate within him while he made a decision on whether to let you go or kill you.   
  
He raised a single thin eyebrow at you, crossing his arms over his chest.   
  
“What makes you think that he won’t come for you?” He asked simply, cocking his head while he waited for your answer. You could just see a few dark strands below the red, indicating that his natural hair colour was a much darker than the bright red.   
  
“Why would he?” The way that he smirked at your answer did nothing to still the uneasy thump of your heart in your chest and even Yeosang was staring curiously at him now, hand dropping from rubbing his red jaw to nestle deeply in the pockets of his black jeans.   
  
“Do you really think that he cares that little for you? Don’t you know _who_ you are?” Hongjoong leaned closer, smiling, clearly enjoying his new found power over you. His eyes simmered with glee, his teeth glimmering white below his smile.   
  
You shivered, shifting as far back from him as you could, regardless of the fact it brought you closer to Wooyoung’s chest, your back pressed firmly against him now.   
  
To his credit, he remained utterly still and silent, though his grip on you tightened with every breath the both of you took.   
  
“I’m just his roommate.” You whispered, eyes wide and unfocused.   
  
“Oh, you’re a lot more than that. Don’t you think by now you’re almost like… family?” Hongjoong grinned lazily, his dark eyes watching you for your reaction.   
  
Family.   
  
You didn’t have family.   
  
For as long as you could remember, you’d just had you.   
  
And then there had been San, appearing almost out of nowhere like a miracle when you needed a roommate to avoid being evicted from your apartment.   
  
But he was just that, a miracle that had happened upon you. Maybe the only miracle in your life.   
  
Family was blood and bones, it was a biological connection that you were positive you didn’t share with San.   
  
There was not a single cell between you that would show up on a DNA test as a match to the other.   
  
You thought.   
  
“He’s my friend.” You said firmly, shaking your head. Hongjoong shrugged, leaning back.   
  
“Believe what you want, eventually you’ll figure it out. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.”   
  
“Clearly not smart enough to know that her date was a set up.” A voice called out with cool confidence.   
  
You fought to remain statue still when Wooyoung once again tightened the knife over your neck, sending thicker rivulets of blood spilling from the small, slowly growing, cut in your neck.   
  
You recognised that voice, though judging by the disgruntled look on Hongjoong and Yeosang’s faces, they didn’t.   
  
And slowly, you realised this was the exact reason that San had invited Seonghwa into your life.   
  
This was what he’d meant this morning when he informed you that he was here because you needed protecting. You hadn’t known until now, but now you were positive as he stepped out of the shadows, a knife of his own glistening between his fingertips.   
  
You’d thought he scared you before, with his cold eyed stare.   
  
But this was a whole new level of fear, mixed with reluctant gratitude.   
  
You’d never seen someone look like the devil himself in human form until now.   
  
With his dark hair slicked back from his face and his dark eyes narrowed to near slits, jaw taut with anger and yet mouth still curled in a sickening smile, he could belong to the underworld easily in this moment.   
  
“Not very nice to call people dumb, you know.” Yeosang drawled, clearly trying to appear unbothered by the unexpected appearance of someone they hadn’t been expecting.   
  
Seonghwa simply stared at him, his smile tightening into a scowl.   
  
You really weren’t sure which was more terrifying.   
  
“I didn’t call her dumb, although I’m starting to think I should have.” He said coldly, glancing briefly at you.   
  
You couldn’t see a single trace of the Seonghwa that had stolen a bite of your cereal this morning in an attempt to prove you wrong about it’s taste only to realise he was wrong.   
  
As hard as your eyes bore into his you couldn’t see a touch of the intimidated look he’d given you on your first meeting.   
  
And yet you were still convinced that those moments had been as genuine as this one was.   
  
“One step and I’ll slit her throat open.” Wooyoung warned, drawing a low keen of pain from you when his hand tightened unbearably tightly around your wrist, definitely crushing some of the smaller bones below his fingertips.   
  
Seonghwa, who should have at the very least looked a bit worried, simply took a single step forward.   
  
“You won’t, because you need her.” He said, smiling triumphantly when his step didn’t result in your throat being slashed. Although if Wooyoung’s pressure didn’t drop from the handle soon you were pretty sure the effect of the blade, now slick with your blood, would be close enough to that of slashing.   
  
“Well not necessarily.” Hongjoong piped up, finally chipping in, staring thoughtfully at Seonghwa. If it was possible, Seonghwa’s eyes narrowed further, his body locking into place.   
  
You were starting to feel dizzy, convinced that there were a thousand little black flies buzzing around his head now as you watched the situation continue to unfold.  
  
“If you’re here to get her, it means that I was at least right enough that San cares about her.” He continued, his words beginning to sound like they were coming out of a cave, echoing back and forth between the walls of your mind.   
  
“Which also means, if we kill her, it’ll upset him.”   
  
Seonghwa had the grace to finally looked the slightest bit uneasy, his dark eyes finding yours. You weren’t sure if it was the blood loss that made the dark pools feel like they were swallowing your soul or whether it was just your desire to be anywhere but here right now.   
  
“It would probably upset him enough to draw him out, to seek to avenge his long lost, dear baby sister.” Your eyes fluttered, body slackening against Wooyoung completely now.   
  
“Let her go.” Seonghwa growled as you floated in the darkness of your closed lids.   
  
“Fine.” Hongjoong said, sighing out. Wooyoung released your body, withdrawing the knife and letting you crash painfully into the ground.   
  
You could barely summon the energy to open your eyes, preferring them to remain closed.   
  
“But don’t forget, she’s only going home safe tonight because I said so.” Hongjoong crooned, kneeling beside you, his hand grasping your chin, jerking it upright. You forced your eyes open, giving one last effort into glaring at him through your lashes.   
  
“And she’s not safe, as long as she breathes she won’t be safe from me. Don’t let him forget that.” Hongjoong smiled softly at you, releasing you and standing abruptly just in time to avoid Seonghwa’s knife spin through the air into the space that he’d been in seconds ago.   
  
It clattered with a loud clang beside you.   
  
“And I will come back for her.” With a nod at Yeosang and Wooyoung, Hongjoong backed away, the smile too easy on his mouth.   
  
The moment they disappeared Seonghwa covered the remaining space between you, dragging you against him, his hands pressing tightly around your throat.   
  
It took your muddled mind a moment to process that he was merely staunching the flow of your blood, not trying to strangle you.   
  
“I think it’s safe to say that you’ve had enough adventures for the night,” He said quietly when you let out an exhausted whimper, flopping uselessly against him. “Let’s get you home, San and I have a lot to discuss with you.”   
  
Yeah, no shit.   



	4. Chapter 4

You leaned heavily on Seonghwa, relying mostly on him and a tiny percent on your own feet to walk.   
  
“You’re an idiot.” He told you for possibly the twentieth time, his arm tight around your waist.   
  
“Yep.” You agreed quietly, tiredly.

  
You just wanted to be home, to be in your bed, buried under a pile of your blankets and safe.   
  
Safe.   
  
You shivered, though the air was far from cold.   
  
You felt Seonghwa’s gaze move from the path to you, his fingers curling against your side.   
  
“I won’t let anything like that happen to you again.” He said, as if his promise meant anything to you.   
  
“Sure.” You agreed again, keeping your eyes on the path ahead because apparently he wasn’t done staring at you and one of you needed to prevent you both from crashing into something.   
  
“Y/n.” He stopped, the arm hooked around you dragging your body to a halt beside him, or rather against him. You continued to stare straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact.  
  
You couldn’t forget the look in his eyes earlier, or the way he’d thrown a knife through the air with the intention to end someone’s life with barely more than a twitch of his wrist.   
  
“Hey!” He half yelled, shaking your shoulder. You gave in and looked at him, eyes searching his face.   
  
He just looked.. like him. Like Park Seonghwa, the guy who’d all but invaded your life and tipped it upside down.   
  
All made up of hard muscles, dark secrets, brooding gazes and hidden sweetness.   
  
You hated him.   
  
“WHAT SEONGHWA, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” You screamed, pushing him solidly in the chest. He barely budged though his mouth dropped open, his eyes wide and stunned as he took you in.   
  
You were breathing heavily, each swallow of air stretching the aching skin of your neck where it had been cut and your hands were shaking at your side, clenching and unclenching.   
  
He closed his mouth, opened it again and finally spoke.   
  
“I want you to trust me.”   
  
You almost laughed in his face.   
  
Instead tears began to stream down your cheeks.   
  
You’d cried more today than you had in the last year and you hated it.   
  
“Trust you?” You looked up at the sky, wondering if there was some spiteful deity up there who just really hated you. “Trust the guy who came into my life out of nowhere then showed up too late to save my ass from a situation that I have no doubt that you played a rather large part in me being put in in the first place.”   
  
He frowned now, looking almost offended when you finally stopped staring at the sky with hatred, focusing it on him instead.   
  
“And you want me to trust you? With my life? With my safety?” You poked him as hard as you could in the chest, satisfied when his face wrinkled in a semblance of pain.   
  
Or maybe it was just discomfort. Maybe even disgust.  
  
Either way was a win in your eyes.   
  
“I had nothing to do with what just happened to you.” He said softly, holding your glare with an even stare.   
  
“Bullshit, you’re telling me you turn up in my life and coincidentally I almost get killed within the next 24 hours?” You hissed, wondering how stupid he thought you were.   
  
Although another voice in the back of your mind reminded you of Hongjoong’s words, of the way they’d mostly just restrained you, only cutting your neck when you struggled.   
  
If they believed you were important to San, it didn’t matter that Seonghwa had appeared at a coincidental time, in fact if anything it was probably lucky that he had.   
  
But you needed someone to blame right now for what you’d just gone through, for the overwhelming swirl of thoughts invading your mind right now and Seonghwa was the easiest target.   
  
“If I say yes, you won’t believe me anyway.” He sighed, almost seeming to deflate as the breath ebbed from him. “But yes, it really is a coincidence.”   
  
“You’re right.” You said, stepping away from him, once again crossing your arms over your chest. He lifted his head curiously at your words, you could nearly see gears turning in the back of his mind through his eyes, trying to understand what he was right about. “I don’t believe you.”   
  
  
-=o=-

“Y/n? What happened?” You were a step inside the doorway to your apartment when your view was cut off by San barrelling into you, his hands cradling your face, touching the edges of the cut on your neck.   
  
You winced, jerking away from him like he was poison.   
  
He was the common denominator throughout everything you’d gone through tonight, no matter which way you looked at it, just knowing San had been enough to put you in the danger you faced tonight.   
  
He was the reason that you couldn’t even think straight, that you no longer knew what your reality was, or where you were safe, who you could trust.   
  
And yet your heart still crumpled at your feet when he stared at the space you’d just been standing in, his hands still hanging in the air where they’d held your face, his face crestfallen.   
  
He looked like his heart was breaking into a thousand and one pieces and you knew that was your fault, but you couldn’t bring yourself to step closer to him.   
  
At least not until you got answers, an explanation. And even then, you weren’t sure if you could ever trust him the way you’d blindly done since the day he’d let himself into your life.   
  
You hadn’t realised you were still subconsciously edging further and further from his frozen and deflated form until your back crashed into something warm and solid, an arm with a vice like grip sliding out to grip your waist and prevent you slipping sideways in shock.   
  
“Let me go.” You snapped, struggling against Seonghwa’s arm. For a brief moment terror filled you when his arm remained tight in place, too strong for you to struggle out of and definitely dangerous enough to snap you in half if he really wanted too.   
  
And then he released you, grunting a little when your elbow jammed backwards into his abdomen as a reflex to push you further quicker.   
  
“Y/n.” San said quietly, sadly, his eyes following you as you began to pace a few feet away from both of them, in front of the entryway to the rest of the apartment.   
  
The apartment that you’d spent so many years of your life sharing with the boy in front of you that had matching dimples in his cheeks when he smiled and gentle hands.   
  
You could still remember the first time you’d come home in tears, how he’d been at your side in an instant, his arms encasing you protectively and gently, voice asking what happened, what could he do for you.   
  
And you could remember with perfect clarity the many nights that you’d woken screaming from nightmares of a past that you could barely remember and he’d been there to soothe you, cradling you and whispering that he understood, although until now you’d never once believed that he could possibly understand.   
  
But now Hongjoong’s words were echoing in your head, on an endless loop that even if you shoved wool into your ears, you’d still hear as clear as you had when he spoke them to you.   
_  
Don’t you think by now you’re almost like… family?  
  
Family. _  
  
The one thing that you’d always accepted you would never have, that you would never know.   
  
Because you’d lost your entire family before you were old enough to even understand what loss was, because you’d been the only survivor of your house burning to the ground in the middle of the coldest night in winter.   
  
You’d had an older brother, the police had told you on many occasions, but he had been inside the house along with your parents when it burnt.   
  
But then, so had you initially. 

  
To this day, nobody, including yourself, had ever understood how it was that you had lived when everyone else had died. How had you escaped with only a small patch of scarred skin on your ankle, forever marred by the searing heat of the fire, and the rest of your family had perished?   
  
You’d always assumed that you’d just been lucky, that you’d somehow been woken by the smoke and run outside, screaming for your parents.   
  
There was no way that Choi San could be your family, not by anything but the strong bond between you.   
  
But that was all it was, a bond. There was no possible blood connection between you, anyone who looked at you beside him wouldn’t be able to find a single matching thing in your faces besides the dark eyes filled with secret pain.   
  
But they were different pains.   
  
“Please,” San whispered to you, cautiously stepping closer, closing some of the distance that you’d created between you. Before you could scurry backwards, Seonghwa’s arm darted out, catching his friend by the elbow to prevent him advancing any further.   
  
“San, can’t you see she’s terrified? You need to explain, you should have when I told you to.” He said coldly, dark eyebrows drawn together. For a moment San looked angry and you were positive he was about to twist and punch Seonghwa in the face, something that you’d actually not mind seeing.   
  
And then the anger seeped away, leaving him a completely deflated version of himself, staring blankly at the floor.   
  
You stopped pacing, torn between hating that he looked so unlike his cheery self and being glad that you were getting closer to answers.   
  
You tried to remind the part of you that felt his pain, that wanted to run into his arms and hug him so hard that his ribs cracked, that it was because of his lies that you were in danger.   
  
“Where do I start?” San muttered, running his fingers through his long hair, glancing first at Seonghwa then at you.   
  
You squared your jaw, standing as straight and tall as you could manage.   
  
There was one thing that you needed to know above all else, because in turn knowing that answered a lot more of your questions.   
  
“Are you my brother?”  
  
He froze, swallowing hard.   
  
Even Seonghwa looked surprised, his dark eyes flitting to you, lips parting slightly. His hand dropped from San’s arm slowly.   
  
You dared a step closer, staring hard at both of them.   
  
“Well San? Are you?” You’d thought you might cry, asking him this. But a part of you knew already what his answer was, you’d already prepared yourself for this conversation, for the outcome of it.   
  
It didn’t make it any easier to believe.   
  
“Yes, Y/n.” He finally said, sounding defeated and slumping against the wall behind him, putting his head in his hands. “Yes, I’m your brother.”   
  
The world went dark and from a distance you felt the painful slam of the ground meeting your knees and the hands that caught your head just in time to prevent it from following the fate of your knees.   
  
The sounds of San crying out in distress and Seonghwa trying to comfort him felt like they came to you through a tunnel that stretched for miles, until what reached you was barely more than a vibration of air.   
  
When your eyelids no longer felt like heavy lead weighted them down, you opened them.   
  
You sat up faster than your body was prepared for, sending a wave of dizziness over you.   
  
You were in your room, on your bed, alone.   
  
You placed a hand against your forehead, letting out a near silent groan.  
  
There was no possible way that you’d just dreamt everything that happened, you could still feel the dull ache in your neck from the laceration there.   
  
But you felt disorientated and dazed.   
  
“You’re awake?” A tousle haired San appeared in the doorway, dark shadows under his eyes and two steaming cups in his hands.   
  
Your eyes darted to his small fingers wrapped too tightly around both of the cups, looking way too red for the heat of the liquid inside not to be searing through into his skin.   
  
He looked more lost than you’d ever seen him as he placed the cups down slowly and cautiously on the bedside table beside you, backing instantly off with his hands held up between you.   
  
You stared at the clearly burnt patches of his palms, your heart crumpling despite itself at the sight.   
  
“What happened?” You asked, surprised at the hoarse croak of your voice, hands darting to it before realising a second too late there was only inflamed skin to touch there. He leaned against your wall, shoving his hands into his pockets now that you seemed less panicked.   
  
“You passed out.”   
  
You rolled your eyes.   
  
“I know, but then what?” You gestured down to the bed that you were on top of, blankets layered carefully on you.   
  
“And then Seonghwa brought you to bed.” San gestured at the bed, pursing his lips tightly.   
  
You kicked the blankets off you, suddenly feeling like your skin was crawling with a thousand invisible bugs.   
  
“What the hell happened S-” You choked around his name, not knowing suddenly how you were supposed to say it the same way you’d always said it.   
  
Now ‘San’ wasn’t just San, your roommate, he was San, your brother.  
  
Your older brother that you’d mourned for years and finally come to accept you’d never know.   
  
If he noticed that you couldn’t quite get his name out he didn’t acknowledge it, lurching forward to pace back and forth at the foot of your bed.   
  
“They want me.” He said finally, pausing to look at you as if what he’d just said should be explanation enough for all of the shit that had happened to you.   
  
“I fucking gathered that!” You exclaimed, swinging unsteadily to your feet and attempting to advance threateningly at him.   
  
Instead you swayed on the spot, hands splaying out on the edge of the bedside table to keep you upright.   
  
“What do I have to do with it though?” He jerked guiltily when you looked at him, face contorting slightly.   
  
“Because I care about you, they know that if they take you I’ll come running and that I’ll be vulnerable because I’ll only be thinking about how to get you out.” You didn’t want those words to touch your heart the way they did. It was a cliche explanation and it almost didn’t feel real… but the harsh throbbing of your neck was a very painful reminder that it was real.   
  
You didn’t want to ache for the big brother that you’d thought was dead for more years than you could count on one hand.   
  
You didn’t want to believe that of all things in the world, _you_ were Choi San’s weakness.   
It would be a lot easier for you both to go back to sleep, wake up from the nightmare.   
  
“Then why did you come into my life? You had to know that this would happen eventually.” You snapped at him, raising an eyebrow.   
  
He was frozen on the spot, his dark eyes shining with unshed tears.   
  
You wondered how long he’d wanted to tell you the truth, how long he’d wanted to be able to look at you and call you his little sister aloud.   
  
Probably for nearly as long as you’d thought he was dead.   
  
“When I first found out who you were…” He swallowed, moving closer tentatively, his hand outstretched towards you. “I didn’t think that I would ever have someone come after me.”   
  
After a few moments of staring you gave in and slid your hand into his, allowing him to guide you back to the edge of your bed, sitting down beside him silently while he continued to talk, the words spewing out of him now.   
  
“I’ve always been apart of that side of the world, the dark side. It was the only way that I could survive after.. the fire.”   
  
“But I always did it right, I was always careful.”   
  
What you’d just gone through had you begging to disagree, though you remained silent because it was clear that he wasn’t done yet.   
  
“And then one day I made a mistake, a stupid, small mistake, that put me in the bad books of someone minor. I really never thought it would matter until Seonghwa found me and told me that he was angry enough to threaten you to get to me.”  
  
He looked near devastated as he spoke, hands waving wildly through the air, and you began to understand.   
  
He’d only let himself into your life because he’d thought that if he did things the right way, you’d never even have to know about that side of his life. And he’d been wrong, but if he was telling the truth and it was over something small that shouldn’t normally have mattered.. then this was just ill fortune.   
  
Something that seemed to follow you everywhere you went, so you weren’t entirely sure if it was him who had inconvenienced you or you who had cursed his luck.   
  
“I thought I was going to die.” You said quietly when you realised he was waiting patiently for some kind of response. You tugged your hand out of his and curled it into a fist that you let rest on your leg.   
  
“And then he said that you.. that we were family.” You could feel him freeze beside you, because throughout his whole story he’d strayed far from bringing the word family into it, maybe sensing that you weren’t ready for that.   
  
But you weren’t sure when you’d ever be ready to face the facts, now was as good a time as ever.   
  
The sooner you accepted him, accepted his life, the sooner you could learn how to help him, how to avoid becoming bait for his enemies.   
  
“San, I thought you were dead for so many years that I don’t even know what it’s supposed to feel like to have a big brother anymore.” His chest remained still, like he wasn’t even breathing anymore, and there was a flighty look in his eyes like he’d prepared himself for rejection, like he’d been ready to hear you tell him that you didn’t need your family anymore for years.   
  
And maybe he had.   
  
“I’m sorry that you’ve been struggling alone.” You whispered to him, tears spilling down your cheeks.   
  



	5. Chapter 5

“Hungry?”   
  
No.   
  
You weren’t sure you’d ever be hungry again.   
  
“Sure.” You dragged your body up from the floor, barely feeling the sharp jab of pain that came from your elbow digging harshly into corner of your bed post as you shifted past it.   
  
Everything felt like it was happening to someone else, like it wasnt your body carrying you with heavy steps into the kitchen.  
  
“He’s going to be fine.” Was it really your ears that heard Seonghwa’s empty comfort as he guided your stiff body into the nearest chair, his dark eyes watching you.   
  
“Sure.” You repeated, too dazed to care to listen to the rest of his words.   
  
He would just be saying the same things that he’d been saying all day, all week now. And while at first it had been a small comfort that he believed your brother would turn back up, now it was like hearing a broken record.   
  
You just wanted it to stop and for something else, anything else, to play.  
  
“Y/n.” Warmth filtered through the curtain over your mind and your eyes darted to figure out the source, landing on Seonghwa’s hands cupping your face, his brows drawn tightly together.   
  
Of course.   
  
He was the only person here now.   
  
Just you and Park Seonghwa, and the memory of Choi San.   
  
You could almost still smell the shower products he used lingering in the air of the apartment.   
  
There were still things laying in random places that he’d left them in his usual messy way that you hadn’t had the heart to put in the rightful place.   
  
Because you had to believe that San had known at least something, whether it was just that for whatever reason the toilet paper roll belonged on the floor behind the bathroom door rather than in the bin you’d placed in there months ago.   
  
You had to believe that San had known what he was doing when he left his phone laying in the middle of the kitchen table, where it still was, nearly flat now.   
  
You _had_ to believe that he’d known what he was getting himself into when he walked straight into the hands of someone who hated him just to protect you from him.   
  
Because if you didn’t believe all of those things then your wall would begin to crumble and you’d cry and you’d never stop.   
  
“I’m going to bring him back.” Seonghwa’s words brushed the inside of your ear and quicker than you’d done anything lately, your hand darted out, fingers wrapping tightly around the dark sleeve of his jacket. He froze in place, eyes on your hand, pale and trembling but firm.   
  
“Don’t leave me.” You mumbled, still fighting through a daze to be present in the four walled kitchen with him. But your fear of being the only one in this apartment was stronger than your fear of reconnecting with your emotions. “Please just.. stay.”   
  
You saw his throat constrict as he swallowed and watched as his hand lifted to slowly uncurl your fingers from his jacket.   
  
“Alright, I won’t go anywhere.” You relaxed slightly when he finally said the words. You’d known he wouldn’t just leave you, if only for the sake of you being his currently missing best friend’s sister. But it still felt to hear the words aloud, that you wouldn’t be entirely alone, at least for now.   
  
It also made you feel immeasurably guilty and selfish. Maybe Seonghwa was the only person in the world who could save San and yet you begged him to remain here, where he couldn’t do anything.  
  
He released your hand carefully, placing it back on the edge of the table.   
  
“What do you want to eat?” He asked, still half standing half crouching over you, as if unsure of how else to hold himself around you.   
  
He’d become, unwillingly you suspected, the only person left that you could trust and rely on now that San had disappeared.   
  
He shouldn’t have to be looking after you, trying to force the minimal amount of food down your throat everyday to ensure you didn’t starve to death.   
  
But he did it anyway, because both of you knew that if he didn’t come into your room at least once a day to drag you out to the kitchen, you’d stay furled up below your covers, trying your best not to feel the ever growing pain of San’s choice.  
  
It wasn’t like forcing yourself to suffer like that was going to change what he’d done, nor help him come home.   
  
But you’d lost him once, and you’d only just gotten him back and suddenly it felt like the fire all over again.  
  
“I’ll make it.” You murmured, beginning to force yourself up only to find a force on your shoulder keeping you seated. You glanced between Seonghwa’s hand firm on your shoulder and his uneasy expression, confused.   
  
“Let me.” If you didn’t know him better, you’d have thought there was a softness in his voice that hinted at care.  
  
But you did know him better, you’d seen him at his worst and there was no way that his best could be far from it.   
  
“I can make myself food, I’m not an invalid.” You grumbled, shoving his hand from your shoulder and standing abruptly. For a moment he looked like he was going to argue and then he shrugged, stepping out of your way.   
  
He crossed his arms over his chest and watched you with a little too much force to be as uninterested as his body behaviour otherwise suggested, the brown of his eyes almost golden when a bright ray of sun burst through the cracks of the drawn blinds.   
  
You opened the fridge, staring resolutely into it, determined to find something, anything, to eat even if just to prove to him that you weren’t incapable of looking after yourself.   
  
And maybe if you could convince yourself of it too, maybe you would be able to not be terrified of him walking out and leaving you alone.   
  
Maybe then you’d be able to let him go to find your brother.   
  
Heat swelled below your cheeks like fire when you remembered the way you’d grabbed him just moments ago and begged him to stay.   
  
How childish.   
  
No wonder he looked at you like you were a teetering tower constructed of fine particles of dust that would crumble and disintegrate under the smallest wind.   
  
You sighed at the inside of the fridge, trying your best to keep your mind on track as you peered at the very few objects left inside it that were still edible.  
  
There was a half filled carton of eggs at the very back, which you reached for and pulled out, scrutinising it for some hint as to whether they would be rotten when you cracked them open.  


Alas, someone had either intentionally scraped off the part of cardboard that the date was printed on, or it had been worn off.  
  
You couldn’t imagine why either San or Seonghwa would bother spending time and energy on scraping off the date and you certainly knew it hadn’t been you. Which left the option that it had worn off as the more likely, which made you even more uneasy to use them.   
  
How long did something have to sit in the fridge for the date to completely wear off of the cardboard.   
  
If not for Seonghwa’s presence behind you, still just waiting for you to give up and crumble to the ground, you would have shoved them back into the recesses of the refrigerator and opted more simply for a piece of fruit.  
  
Instead you shoved the carton onto the bench beside the stove top, collecting various other pieces of equipment with the intent of making an egg on toast ; maybe the only egg orientated dish that you knew how to do without burning down the house.   
  
Over the years San had learnt it was often best for him to do the cooking, lest he want to eat something either ridiculously overcooked or worse, undercooked.   
  
“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” Seonghwa asked, his voice tinted with amusement as he lifted himself to sit on the bench, not far from where you tentatively poked at the things you’d collected.   
  
“Yes.” You muttered, refusing to look at him and forcing yourself to look semi confident as you dropped one of the eggs directly into a bowl and placed it back down, tightly grabbing the handle of the frying pan you’d found and putting it on the stovetop.   
  
The hard part was trying to remain confident while you stared helplessly at the many knobs that you were pretty sure were the only way for you light the fire to cook your egg.   
  
Seonghwa snorted, leaping down from the bench and leaning around you, his slender fingers expertly twisting one of them. You stiffened, trying to ignore the way his chest pressed into your shoulder, and the fact that his opposite hand hovered around your waist to keep himself balanced while he stretched to adjust the placement of the pan over the correct spot.   
  
“Princess, it’s better if you just let me do it.” He hummed, either knowing perfectly well that the way his warm breath touched the back of your neck made you shiver, or having no care.  
  
“I can do it.” You tried to interject, albeit weakly, attempting to slip out from below his arms and grip.   
  
“Do you really hate me that much?” His quiet words stopped your movements, a knot twisting in the centre of your stomach at the sudden vulnerability in his voice. Out of the corner of your eye you could just see that his eyes no longer held the same hardness they often did, there was no veil over his emotions.   
  
Maybe it was that that made you turn to face him, ignoring the fact that you were now trapped between a lit stove top and his body.   
  
His head was tilted to the side, brows furrowed just enough to crease the skin between his eyes, like he was searching for any reason that you didn’t like him.   
  
“I don’t know anymore.” You finally admitted quietly, staring intently at his features in expectation of some cocky reaction. Instead he only looked away, jaw taut. “Does it really matter? You clearly don’t like me either.”   
  
This time he reacted, head swinging abruptly back to face you, eyebrows shooting up and lips parting slightly.   
  
“What?” He asked, his tone a mix of amusement and incredulousness. “You really think that?”   
  
You drew on as many memories of him, of your interactions, as you could remember.   
  
The first time you’d thought he must dislike you was when you’d touched his bare back, tracing your fingers over the scar that marred the otherwise perfectly smooth skin. He’d frozen under you like ice and then reacted like you were poison, drawing himself out of your reach.   
  
Then he’d snapped at you in your own doorway the next day, menacing and dark, telling you that you didn’t need to know him.   
  
And then of course there was the night he’d saved you.   
  
If you hadn’t been the one he was saving, you could have believed he would have driven that knife right through your chest without a second thought by the glacial and deadened look in his eyes.   
  
And yet right from the start you’d been unable to completely hate him, because he’d never entirely seemed to hate you either.   
  
There had been moments where you could have sworn he even enjoyed your company, enjoyed teasing you in a way that had nothing to do with hatred.   
  
“Yes.” You nodded your head at him, though your voice betrayed the confusion you were now feeling too.   
  
He rolled his eyes and in a movement that, had you even of been able to move, shocked you so much that you wouldn’t have anyway, his lips were crashing against yours.   
  
At first you didn’t react, couldn’t bring yourself to return his almost desperate kiss.   
  
And then, like a switch had been flipped within you, you were pushing off of the stove edge, pressing into him, your lips moving against his with equal desperation.   
  
Yes, there was a chemical connection between you.   
  
No you didn’t want to think about your emotions, about whether you even liked him enough to do this.   
  
He groaned when your hands found their way to the back of his hair, tugging lightly at the strands until he grabbed tightly to your wrists, driving them back down to your sides, tearing himself backwards from you.  
  
He was panting, his eyes wild and his hair even messier than his expression.   
  
“Shit.” He muttered, swollen lips barely moving properly around the word. You blinked, taking the moment to force your breathing back to a normal pace.   
  
“Shit, shit, shit.” He continued to mutter, rubbing his forehead then running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to neaten it. As if anyone would walk in and see the two of you, as if San might just be in the next room.   
  
The thought of San sent your high from the kiss spiralling, dipping into a pool of languid regret.   
  
Why the hell had he kissed you?  
  
Why had you kissed back?   
  
“Don’t freak out.” He held his hands up, eyes tracing your face as your lip began to tremble.   
  
“I’m not.” You insisted, though the tremor in your voice gave you away even more than the fact that you were now staring straight up at the ceiling in an effort to hide the tears clouding your gaze once more.   
  
You swallowed hard and tried again.   
  
“I’m not.”   
  
Nope, it didn’t sound any more stable.   
  
Fantastic.   
  
“I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry.” You weren’t sure what was worse, that he sounded genuinely apologetic, or that he was apologising at all.   
  
“It’s fine.”   
  
“No it isn’t.” He disagreed the moment the words left your lips and you levelled your head again, in control enough to have blinked your tears away.   
  
He looked distraught, now perched on the edge of the chair he’d pulled out for you earlier, his head hanging in his hands.   
  
“Seonghwa, it was just a kiss,” You muttered, more than a little confused, and concerned, by his reaction. “I can’t even count how many times a guy has kissed me and then clearly regretted it, so don’t worry.”   
  
The last part was meant to ease his distress, and lighten the mood, though for some reason it onlymade you both feel worse.   
  
You because it was the truth and this felt a lot like history repeating itself, and him, well you couldn’t fathom why he was looking at you like that now.   
  
“First of all, it wasn’t just a kiss.” He said slowly, shifting even further to the edge of his seat to peer at you. “Secondly-”  
  
He paused, and you waited, holding your breath.   
  
He stood and closed the distance between you again, this time moving slowly, his hands raising to cup your face gently.   
  
His touch was softer and more careful than you’d have ever expected him to be capable of.   
  
He didn’t kiss you, which you were grateful for because truthfully you weren’t sure that you could take another one.   
  
“Secondly, you deserve so much better.” He said to you gently, his thumb stroking the curve of your cheek, his eyes holding yours intently.   
  
You opened your mouth and then closed it, blinking slowly.   
  
It wasn’t that you agreed with his statement, but you couldn’t find a reason to _disagree_. Because if you did, then what did that mean?  
  
That you wanted him?   
  
That you wanted to do more than share a kiss, a night in his bed, with him?   
  
The weight that any words you said to him now was too much for you to process right now.   
  
You closed your eyes and drew in a shaking breath, placing a hand firmly in the centre of his chest and pressing until you felt him shift backwards, a slow step at a time, until there was enough space for you to slip out from under his hanging hands.   
  
You didn’t bother looking back at his silent form as you exited the kitchen, beelining straight for your room.   
  
You closed the door behind you and leant against it, staring wide eyed ahead of you into your room.   
  
Your heart was thumping unevenly in your chest and your mouth was as dry as your throat, your hands trembling lightly at your side.   
  
_Did you like Park Seonghwa?_


	6. Chapter 6

Could you like him?   
  
Sure, he was handsome.   
  
He had dark glittering eyes that reminded you of the dark sky with no stars or moonlight. His jawline could definitely cut someone if he wanted it to and his lips were just the right mix of plush and firm.   
  
The way that those lips had felt on yours was everything but wrong, and also anything but right.   
  
But his hands were steady enough to send a knife spinning with deadly accuracy through the air and his tightly compacted muscles were enough to probably crush the life out of you if he wanted.   
  
It should make you feel safe, but it made you terrified.   
  
You let out yet another groan, the fifth of the last hour, pressing your forehead hard against the cold wall of the shower.   
  
The water running down your body in rivulets was now less steaming hot and more lukewarm, bordering on cool.   
  
You stretched your hand out to flick the tap, halting the falling water’s journey from the faucet, and slid slowly to the floor of the shower, drawing your legs against you.   
  
The water remaining in sparkling droplets on your skin soon cooled to an unbearable point, making your teeth chatter and your body to shake.   
  
But you still remained in place, staring through the slowly clearing steamy glass of the shower walls, unseeing.   
  
This would be a lot simpler if he’d just said it was nothing but a kiss.   
  
But no, he’d had to go and ruin everything by grabbing your face like that, cradling it like a delicacy between his slim, warm fingers and tell you that it was more than just a kiss, that you deserved better.   
  
And what did that even mean, you deserved better?   
  
Because when it came to looks, the only person you knew that even vaguely rivalled Park Seonghwa’s looks was that pretty pixie looking boy, Yeosang.   
  
Who had also coincidentally been one of your captors and a complete asshole, whilst Seonghwa was far from cuddly and soft, he at least had some morality to him.   
  
A knock shattered the thick silence you’d been blanketed in since the water stopped running and you jumped, the back of your head slamming harshly into the wall behind you.   
  
“Are you still in there?” Seonghwa’s voice filtered through the gaps of the door and you bit down hard on your lip.   
  
You could just ignore him.   
  
Eventually he’d probably walk away.   
  
“Y/n, first of all, I want to shower too and secondly if you don’t answer me I’m going to assume something terrible happened and kick this door down.” He paused for a moment while your breathing hitched, your mind panicking over your options now. “So you’ve got about 30 seconds before I make that assumption.”   
  
You scrambled up, snatching the towel hanging on the rack beside the shower and numbly wrapping it around your shivering body.   
  
You’d really hoped to avoid talking to him for at least another twenty four hours but he was apparently determined for that not to be the case.   
  
“Ten seconds…” He hummed through the door, a soft scraping following that you assumed was his knuckles lightly dragging over the hardened wooden surface.   
  
You sighed, tightening the towel firmly around as much of you as you could.   
  
“Five-are you seriously going to make me kick this door in?” He asked incredulously, his soft voice a lot louder than before, much closer to the actual gap between the door and the wall.   
  
You flinched slightly at the thought of him throwing all his strength at the solid wooden door -it was strong sure, but not strong enough to endure a few hard shoves from Seonghwa. You could still remember the last, considerably stronger, door that San had once managed to break down with only four solid throws of his body when you’d accidentally locked it behind you one night.   
  
So there was no doubt that this much less sturdy one would take a lot less of a beating before it gave in and surrendered you to your fate.   
  
“Three.”   
  
You sucked in a deep breath.   
  
“Two.”  
  
Glanced once at the mirror beside you, taking in the unruly mess of your wet hair and wild eyes.   
  
“One.”  
  
You were far from prepared to face him.   
  
“I’m coming in.”   
  
You placed your hand on the door handle, feeling the intense shudder of the door following Seonghwa’s first attempt to break it down through the cold metal.   
  
At least you knew he was true to his word.   
  
“Stop it.” You hissed, flicking the lock and throwing the door open.   
  
Seonghwa, who had been midway through his second attempt, stuttered in shock when he saw the door swing out towards him and tittered a few unsteady steps backwards, trying to regain his balance.   
  
You watched silently as he lost his battle with gravity and crashed with a loud thud to the ground, his dark hair flopping over his forehead as he let out a heavy groan.   
  
Then he was tilting his head up, peering at you through the dark locks of his hair, hair that you knew was soft and silky because just yesterday afternoon you’d run your fingers through it.   
  
You knew by the sly quirk of his lips that your cheeks were definitely as red as they felt and you shifted uncomfortably, realising that now his entire body sprawled on the floor was between you and the hallway which you’d planned to at least attempt to escape down away from him.   
  
“Are you gonna help me up?” He asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, earning a silent glare from you.   
  
It was hardly your fault that he’d been childish enough to start attacking the door just to force you out of the shower.   
  
Nor that he hadn’t reacted quick enough to avoid falling down.   
  
“Guess not,” He grunted, placing his hands behind him and thrusting his body upwards with an incredible show of strength, somehow managing to twist himself up straight with minimal effort.   
  
He dusted his hands from dirt that you were positive was more imaginary than real and grinned at you.   
  
“Is there any hot water left?”   
  
How could he act so nonchalant, like he hadn’t kissed you yesterday until neither of you could breathe, then told you it was more than just a kiss.   
  
And now he was asking whether there was any _hot water left._  
  
“I don’t know.” You said shortly, trying to sidestep around his body and finding yourself more trapped than before when his muscled arm swung out to block you, head lazily swinging to watch you as you struggled to react in a calm way.   
  
“Well was it cold when you turned it off?” You gave him an incredulous look, shoulders a tense line and arms beginning to cover in small bumps.   
  
It was colder out here than it had been in the bathroom, where the heated steam had lingered long enough to retain some of the warmth long after it the hot water had run out.  
  
“It was warm, okay?” You snapped, glaring through narrowed eyes.   
  
Whatever game he was trying to play, you were far from interested or emotionally available enough to even wrap your head around.   
  
You barely knew how you felt about him, beyond the obvious physical attraction.   
  
If you’d thought it would mean nothing to either of you, you’d drop your towel right now and let him have his way with you.   
  
Well, maybe.   
  
You closed your eyes and leant back against the wall, forcing your breathing to remain steady as your head began to swim again, like it had in the shower.  
  
So many things were going wrong in such a short amount of time and you felt trapped no matter what you did or thought. San was gone, you had no idea if you’d ever see him again or where to even start looking for him.   
  
You had been, and potentially still were, a target of a very dangerous group of men who wanted to hurt your brother.   
  
And now Park Seonghwa, who you couldn’t figure out whether to trust or hate or like or what, was becoming even more complicated than he’d already been by exisiting in your life.   
  
“Y/n, breathe.” His voice came softly, along with his tentative touch on your trembling wrist, moving along the length of your arm to your shoulder, which he gripped tightly. Your aching lungs begged for you to listen to him, while your throat constricted painfully tight at the idea of it.   
  
You didn’t even know when you’d stopped.   
  
If your eyes weren’t already closed, you’d be seeing black spots in your vision now.   
  
“Princess, please.” You’d never heard him sound so distressed.   
  
That only added to your confusion.   
  
Your hands clenched and unclenched, your body screaming at you to breathe.   
  
Something warm and soft and enticingly inviting brushed over your sealed lips and you parted them, air rushing into your lungs with a shaking gasp on your behalf.   
  
You opened your eyes, peering through the thick curtain of your lashes to see Seonghwa lean back away from you, relief scrawled deep into the frown lines of his handsome face.   
  
“Did you just kiss me into breathing?” You asked quietly, not entirely sure how you felt about that idea.   
  
His lips barely twitched and he shook his head slightly.   
  
“I didn’t kiss you. I won’t do that again without your permission.” You raised your eyebrows, deciding not to argue that putting his lips close enough to brush against yours wasn’t as much of a saint’s throw from being a kiss as he clearly believed.   
  
Whatever it was, it had worked.   
  
“Whatever, thank you anyway.” He nodded silently in response, stepping away from you. “And Seonghwa?”   
  
He looked up so fast you wondered if it hurt his neck, his eyes trained expectantly, patiently, on you.   
  
“I’d wait a few hours before you shower, if you want it hot.” You muttered.   
  
A smile split his face, softening every feature of his beautiful face, doubling the attraction you already felt towards him.   
  
“I had one earlier anyway.” He chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets and strolling with light steps back into his room.   
  
Well San’s room, although considering he’d been sleeping in there for a good few weeks now, you considered it more Seonghwa’s than San’s.   
  
Which in the long run, made little sense when San had lived in that room for years as compared to the mere days that added up into less than a month that Seonghwa had spent in there.   
  
You turned and forced yourself towards your own room, numbly shoving the nearest clean clothes your eyes found onto your body.   
  
You’d barely finished shrugging your top on when a shadow filled the doorway, making you glance up, irritated words on your lips to send Seonghwa away when your eyes lighted on the figure.   
  
“San?!” 


	7. Chapter 7

Blood, both old and fresh, seemed to cover almost every inch of skin that dark bruises didn’t.   
  
You watched in horror as yet more seeped from a deep wound along San’s cheekbone, gliding wetly down the side of his face as he stared at you, his fingers tightly clasped to the edge of your doorway.   
  
You could see his arm, most of which was also covered in either dried blood or bruises, trembling with the effort of holding himself up. Slowly at first, then quicker, you crossed the space between you and grabbed him by his elbow.   
  
“Y/n.” He croaked, blinking languidly everywhere but at you. Like he knew you were there but couldn’t see you, it scared you.   
  
“Seonghwa!” You called shakily, keeping your eyes fixed on your brother as his body convulsed weakly around a dry cough.   
  
“Hm?” Seonghwa’s feet padded softly down the corridor, a yawn escaping his lips as he stretched his arms up. When he finally squinted through his lashes at you he froze, arms still extended halfway above his head.   
  
“Help.” You whimpered, begging with your eyes for him to leap into action, to take control and to know what to do with your injured brother, because you were at a complete loss.   
  
“San?” Seonghwa choked out, rushing over and grabbing his other side, supporting him a whole lot more than you were. San allowed his drooping head to fall heavily against Seonghwa’s shoulder and for a moment you almost felt like you didn’t exist in their space as they shared a look that probably communicated more words than you’d heard them speak aloud to each other in one conversation.   
  
“Okay, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Seonghwa muttered to himself, repeating the five words over and over like a mantra as he swung both his and San’s body towards the kitchen. They got barely four steps in that direction when a manic and hauntingly familiar sounding chuckle splintered the silent air.   
  
You dug your fingers into San’s arm, dragging both he and Seonghwa back towards you as a familiar figure filled the space in front of you all.   
  
Hongjoong.   
  
A knife, that was terrifyingly familiar to you too, the same one that Seonghwa had tossed with frightening accuracy at Hongjoong when he was rescuing you, gleamed between Hongjoong’s fingers now.   
  
His eyes sparkled with intelligence and amusement as he casually leaned his shoulder against the doorway, tilting his head to take in the trio before him.   
  
Every nerve inside you screamed for you to run and every muscle trembled with the effort to remain rooted in place, body shifting slightly in front of San as if you could do anything to protect him.   
  
The only purpose it would serve, if Hongjoong really wanted to hurt him, was being an extra layer of body for that knife to slice through.   
  
“Hello again, princess.” He grinned maliciously at you, the pet name falling silkily from his lips as he regarded your protective stance. He made the word sound dirty and wrong, filling you with something sour.   
  
Not at all the way you reacted when Seonghwa said it, not that that thought had any place in this moment.   
  
“What do you want?” You snapped, the venom that laced your voice and gave you that spark of confidence against him shrinking within you when he arched an eyebrow, lazily spinning the knife in his hands.   
  
“Not that I owe you an explanation, but I actually came with a business proposition.” He said, his words directed to your brother behind you although his eyes remained fixed on you.   
  
There was an interest in them that only added to the sick churning of your insides and you began to shrink back into your brother as he took a few slow steps forwards.   
  
Just before he reached you, Seonghwa slipped between you, his hand reaching behind him to touch your wrist lightly and his other slamming hard into Hongjoong’s chest.   
  
“That’s close enough.” He said tightly, his fingers still resting on your wrist, unknowingly giving you the strength to suck in a few deep lungfuls of air to steady yourself.   
  
Hongjoong, who should have at least been a bit pissed, let out a short laugh, holding both hands up in a sign of surrender and taking a step backwards.   
  
“Alright, I understand the hostility. And it appears I’ve come at an incredibly bad time for San here,” His eyes slithered over to the point just above your shoulder, where you had no doubt your brother’s beaten face would be staring defiantly back despite the fact he was too weak to do a thing to protect himself right now.   
  
“A bad time?!” Seonghwa spat, lurching forward angrily. “ _You_ did this to him.”  
  
You lurched with him, grabbing as tight to the back of his shirt as you could in an effort to stop him from putting not only himself but yourself and San at risk too. As your knuckles scraped desperately over his spine he seemed to come to the conclusion himself that it was better to hold off an attack.   
  
Your body crashed against his and a tiny puff of air escaped you as the hard angles of his back knocked the air from you.   
  
It was only San’s sudden grip on your arm that stopped you from falling backwards onto the ground, much like Seonghwa had earlier.   
  
How San had found the strength to help you when he could barely hold onto the wall to keep himself up, you didn’t know, but you were now sandwiched between the two most important people in your life with less ability than either to help yourself let alone them.   
  
“You think that I would do something like that?” Hongjoong laughed, though his gaze hardened.   
  
He was offended, you realised with a sickening lurch of your stomach.   
  
But if Hongjoong hadn’t been the one to do this to your brother… who had?   
  
And why?   
  
“You said you only pissed off one person.” You hissed below your breath to San, who cast you a confused and then upset look.   
  
You realised that he hadn’t even had the chance since stumbling his way inside your doorway to tell either you or Seonghwa who had done this to him.   
  
You’d both just assumed it had to have been Hongjoong, especially with his untimely appearance.   
  
Seonghwa remained quiet, his head slightly turned towards the two of you, clearly listening in for any clues.   
  
“Who was it San?” You nudged him gently when he clenched his jaw and looked away.   
  
Hongjoong’s eyes were back on you now, with far too much attentiveness for you to feel comfortable and you shifted from one foot to the other.   
  
You knew that right now Seonghwa stood between the two you, making you relatively safe for the time being but there was something about the way he continued to watch you that felt like bugs crawling over your skin.   
  
You also knew that San would quite literally get himself killed before letting Hongjoong near you, which only made things that much more perilous.   
  
“I sorted my problems with your brother,” Hongjoong snapped when you cast him a sidelong glance, his eyes growing fiery. “He left my headquarters minimally damaged. I certainly didn’t do this,” He gestured at San’s bloodied face and body disdainfully. “To him.”  
  
Seonghwa seemed to deflate somewhat, shifting backwards closer to the two of you, his dark eyes flitting between first San then you.   
  
He looked uneasy and worried, because now all of you were at a disadvantage.   
  
And Hongjoong was the only one in the apartment with a fatal weapon at his disposal. One flick of his wrist could end one of your lives in a matter of seconds and a sudden desire to step directly in front of not just San but Seonghwa filled you.   
  
If someone had to die, or be at risk, it should be you.   
  
If you died, Hongjoong lost all leverage over both of them.   
  
A shaky inhale, a shakier exhale and then you were smoothly sidestepping in front of them both, the back of your shoulders brushing briefly against Seonghwa’s chest.   
  
A smirk from Hongjoong filled your vision and a soft scuffle behind you, and then Hongjoong was far too close, the knife pointed over your shoulder in the direction of the muffled protests coming from San’s mouth.   
  
The sharp edge of the blade dug into your skin through the material of your top, making you tense.   
  
So much for a heroic act.   
  
“Like I said, I just came here with a business proposition.” You shivered violently when Hongjoong looked directly at you this time as he spoke. “I expect you all to listen carefully, because I won’t repeat nor offer this again.”   
  
Hongjoong exuded a kind of confidence that left no room for doubt in his words and despite your absolute disgust in the things he’d so far put you through, you had to admit a grudging respect for it. In the face of everything he stood, one against three, without a flicker of fear in his eyes.   
  
You could almost feel Seonghwa’s anger like a seething mass of darkness behind you, his arm sliding tightly around your waist, as if by tugging you closer to him he could remind you that you were incapable of doing the protecting here, that he was the one protecting you.   
  
Which of course he couldn’t protect you like this, but the heavy weight gave you a sense of comfort, despite it’s meaning.   
  
“San straightened things between us, but he has more enemies out there that know about you sweets.” Hongjoong’s eyes glanced down to Seonghwa’s arm around you then in the direction that San’s muffled protests were coming from, finally resting back on you as he lifted the knife point to trace the contours of your trembling jaw.   
  
You could feel Seonghwa’s hand curl into a fist against your stomach, his body shaking almost uncontrollably now as he struggled to reel in his anger.   
  
You wouldn’t have to know him as well as you already did to know that all he wanted now was to be atop of Hongjoong, driving his fists unrelentlessly into his smug face.   
  
But then maybe you wouldn’t have needed to know him at all to know that’s what he wanted, because you wanted the same thing.  
  
Whatever Seonghwa had been to you before this, friend, acquaintance, something more, he was definitely trying his best not to become a monster in front of you now.  
  
“Which means that you’re still in danger,” Hongjoong waved his free hand carelessly and for the first time since Seonghwa had grabbed you, you shrank fully back against his body. Your breaths leaving you in shuddering exhales, the world spinning.   
  
“But we can offer you protection if you all help us meet deadlines.” Seonghwa gave up all pretence of being subtle about comforting you, his other arm linking with his first, his chin pressing against the top of your head.  
  
What Hongjoong was asking.. he wasn’t asking _you_ but Seonghwa and San and this time he stared pointedly between the two of them, barely bothering to mask the threat in his eyes and lacing his words.   
  
“Don’t.” You whispered, though it was lost to San stepping, or rather limping, forward. Now that Seonghwa’s hands were focused on holding you upright, he was no longer being restrained and free to step between you and Hongjoong.   
  
You’d seen San angry before, plenty of times.   
  
You didn’t live with someone for years and not see almost every side of them there was.   
  
But the kind of anger inside his eyes now, driving him to stand tall despite the exhaustion that must be dragging at his limbs and gifting him the ability to stare down his nose at Hongjoong, frightened you.   
  
“We’ll do whatever you want, just keep her safe.” He spat, not bothering to look back over his shoulder at Seonghwa, to see if his dark haired friend even agreed.   
  
Because everyone in the room knew, just by the tight grip that he held you in, that he did agree. That even if San had not been the one to step forward, he would have said or done something to a similar degree.   
  
Hongjoong, seeming somewhat at odds now that you’d been separated from the point of his knife and sharp tongue simply nodded.   
  
“It’s going to be okay.” Seonghwa murmured into your ear as a tiny sound of distress escaped you.   
  
But it wasn’t.   
  
You didn’t understand how he could say that to you in the face of what was happening.   
  
He couldn’t promise that anything was going to be okay when both he and San had just signed themselves up to the equivalent of the devil just to keep you safe. There was no proof to his claims that others knew about you, for all any of you knew he was just lying through his teeth.   
  
“You can’t.” You breathed, fingers digging into his clasped hands over your stomach, desperately trying to rip yourself from his grip.  
  
You didn’t see Hongjoong leaving, too focused on your attempts to get away from Seonghwa, until the sound of the front door slamming dragged your gaze up, just in time to see San slumping down to the floor, his energy evidently spent.   
  
“Y/n.” Seonghwa swiftly removed his arms and grabbed your shoulders tightly, turning you to face him in a quick motion, his dark eyes trained seriously on your face. “I know the last thing you want is either of us being at risk for you, but I’m sorry that’s not a choice you get to make.”   
  
Your lips parted to argue when San piped up weakly from the floor.   
  
“He’s right, I’m sorry but after all I’ve done and gone through to protect you, I’m not about to stop now.”   
  
You shrugged Seonghwa’s hands from your shoulders and swung to round on your brother, glaring down at him.   
  
“Speaking for yourself is one thing, you didn’t even _ask_ Seonghwa, San. Maybe he didn’t want to be involved in our family drama.” Though you’d just barely accustomed yourself to thinking of San as your brother, using the word family felt wrong and strange on your lips after so many years of dodging the very mention of it on other people’s lips.  
  
San let out a soft chortle, peering through the long strands of hair over his forehead at Seonghwa.   
  
“I didn’t need to ask him. I know he’d give his life in a thousand different lifetimes for you.” You froze, swallowing hard.   
  
San didn’t know about the kiss. He couldn’t.   
  
And there was no way that, even if Seonghwa was telling the truth about it being more than a kiss, that he’d really be so dedicated to protecting you.   
  
He barely knew you, and you barely knew him.   
  
“You’re both idiots and I hate you.” You snapped, whirling to storm away. Seonghwa gave you a slight smile though, shaking his head, making you pause out of spiteful curiosity.  
  
“What?”   
  
“You’re only going to come walking back over here in about ten minutes to help San up off the floor and help me clean him up, don’t bother.” He pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders, brushing past you to kneel beside San who was rolling his eyes.   
  
As much as you wanted to disagree, he had a point. However mad you were at _both_ of them, you were too worried about the state of your brother to just stalk off and do nothing.   
  
Plus, while there was no second guessing Seonghwa’s fighting abilities, you weren’t entirely convinced he had any skills in first aid, especially judging by the lost way he peered at the injuries on San’s body.

So with a disgruntled huff you knelt beside him and hooked an arm below San’s armpit, helping to drag your tired brother up on to his feet. 


	8. Chapter 8

“Ah- Ouch.” San winced away from your hand and you glared at him, harshly grabbing his chin and drawing it back towards you while you dabbed as softly as you could at the deepest slash on his jaw.   
  
“Why are you being so rough?” He whined, lips turning out in a pout that you were very tempted to throw your fist into.   
  
Seonghwa chuckled from somewhere below your elbow and you huffed loudly.   
  
You didn’t need to look down to know that he was working on the lengthy but shallow cut that twisted across San’s forearm.   
  
“Because you’re an idiot.” You snapped back at San, releasing his chin with a firm push. You dropped the bloodied cotton ball onto the pile and inspected the rest of his face while he rubbed his chin.  
  
It had taken almost an hour, but finally the blood and dirt was cleared from his skin and all of the cuts, small and big, were covered in a light layer of antibiotic ointment to ward off any infections.   
  
Seonghwa straightened up beside you, throwing you an almost wary look that you ignored by turning your head in the opposite direction.   
  
You were still mad at the both of them, just because San was injured didn’t mean you were going to forgive him for the choice he’d made and just because Seonghwa was tiptoeing around the fact that he’d basically agreed he’d give up his life for you, didn’t mean you were happy about it.   
  
“I’m also your older brother.” San muttered, finally drawing your attention.   
  
Red filled your vision and before you knew it you were grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, shoving your face towards his angrily.   
  
“THEN ACT LIKE IT SAN. YOU JUST LEFT ME HERE, YOU LEFT AND I HAD NO IDEA WHETHER I WAS EVER GOING TO SEE YOU AGAIN AND NOW YOU’RE BACK LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED EVEN THOUGH I JUST SPENT AN HOUR CLEANING BLOOD AND DIRT FROM YOUR FACE.”   
  
You were breathing hard by the time you were done, and spent of energy you dropped your hands from his collar and took an unsteady step away.   
  
San stared silently at you, a small frown creasing his forehead.   
  
“Everything that I’ve done is to protect you.” He said slowly, almost as if you were incapable of understanding a simple argument.   
  
But there was nothing simple about it and you were saved expending more energy on him by Seonghwa sighing loudly.   
  
Both of you turned to look at him as he swept his dark hair back, glaring first at San then at you.   
  
“You’re both acting like children, both trying to protect the other.” He snatched the pile of bloodied cotton balls from the table and dumped them aggressively into the bin. “Y/n, he’s been looking out for you for years, that’s not something he can just give up and stop doing just because you know the truth now. You’re still his little sister.”   
  
San made a victorious noise from the back of his throat as you opened and closed your mouth in response to Seonghwa. Seonghwa held your gaze for a few more seconds before switching his attention to San, rounding on him with a hard glint in the depths of his eyes.   
  
For a brief moment you were scared for San, before you remembered all the things that Seonghwa had done for him. However mad he was, Seonghwa would never, ever, hurt San. You believed that.   
  
“And you, San. She’s been through so much, by herself. She’d only just started to adjust to having a brother back in her life that she thought was dead, then he disappeared and she thought she’d lost him, for the second time. She’s spent her entire life surviving on her own, and that,” Seonghwa jabbed San square in the chest, earning a wince from him. “Is not something that she can change any easier than you can change your ways.”   
  
Both of you stared in stunned silence when he was done and he didn’t spare either of you a glance before stalking angrily from the room.   
  
You glanced over at San, blinking slowly.   
  
“Sorry.” San mumbled sheepishly, sighing out as he tugged at the ends of his long hair. “Hwa is right…”   
  
You rolled your eyes.   
  
“I’m sorry too.”   
  
He smiled a little at that, sticking his arms out hesitantly towards you. You folded yourself easily into them.  
  
The sound and feel of his steady heartbeat under your ear, pressed to his chest, was surprisingly comforting. The sense of comfort disturbed you and set you off kilter, the emotions that you’d been so forcefully burying in his absence rising to the surface, pooling in your eyes wetly.   
  
Against your will, a sniffle escaped your nose, the sound mostly muffled in San’s shirt.   
  
Clearly not enough because after a hesitant moment San’s hands were on your shoulders, pushing you just far enough away for his dark eyes to take in your face curiously.   
  
“Are you crying?” He asked incredulously, lips quirking the smallest bit. You tried to glare at him before looking away as defiantly as you could.   
  
“Shut up, San.” You warned lowly, wishing that the turmoil of emotions in your chest could be pushed down like they had been able to be before he turned back up.   
  
There were a thousand and one more things for you to worry about right now than the fact that San was actually here and alive and safe.   
  
Like the fact that now _your_ life was on the line, that the only two people that you actually cared about in this world were stupidly willing to lay down their lives for you.   
  
“It’s okay to cry.” He muttered suddenly, drawing your surprised gaze back to him. You expected to see a teasing smile on his lips, or a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, but there was only an endless sea of understanding on his features.   
  
“I don’t want you two to put yourselves at risk for me.” You told him, rubbing at your eyes violently until the pooling tears were dispersed and your skin ached. He watched silently, seeming to take time to collect together the words to respond back with.   
  
“I know, and I’m sorry. But you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be doing the same thing for me, or for him.”   
  
Him.   
  
Your muscles tightened of their own accord, your eyes instantly dropping along with your head as you tried to process the tone your brother had just used. It wasn’t quite disapproving, nor was it necessarily encouraging.   
  
And yet you were positive he couldn’t know about the kiss you’d shared with Seonghwa, there was just no way.   
  
But there was no mistaking the hints to his words, not just now but earlier. He knew that there was something going on between the two of you and you weren’t sure if he knew how he felt about it any better than you did.   
  
“Y/n, I’ve been through hell and back to protect you. I’m not going to stop now.” San said softly, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead and squeezing your shoulder before straightening himself and half walking, half limping, towards the open doorway that Seonghwa had exited from earlier.   
  
He glanced over his shoulder at you, flashing a tired smile before disappearing around the corner, his footsteps creating loud drags over the floorboards that eventually began to fade with the more distance that was put between you.   
  
You let out a heavy sigh, sinking back down slowly onto the seat he’d been in earlier, staring up at the plain ceiling.   
  
There were so many thoughts clashing chaotically around in your head that it made you feel sick and exhausted.   
  
You couldn’t even figure out what needed more attention first anymore, everything was spilling uncontrollably out of a box that you’d tried so hard to keep closed your whole life.   
  
Your eyes closed, nose wrinkling in an effort to force yourself to concentrate on just one of the many things.   
  
“ _it wasn’t just a kiss.”_ Without meaning to, you were letting thoughts of the dark haired, mysterious Seonghwa fill your head.   
  
Although you’d be lying if you said he wasn’t a constant visitor in the furthest reaches of your thoughts at almost all times now. The velvety soft feel of his lips moving against yours, the heat of his palms holding you flush to him-   
  
You jerked up out of your seat, shaking your head violently as if that would rid you of him.   
  
But even if that had worked, your whole body was alive with the knowledge that he was barely a few metres away from you at all times. All it would take right now was a few steps and a knock on his door and you’d be standing in front of him.   
  
“Stop.” You groaned to yourself, burying your head into your hands and shaking it again to clear your thoughts of him. But no matter how many times you shook yourself or desperately tried to grab hold of _any_ other train of thought, everything revolved back to him.   
  
If you tried to think about the fact you were in danger, you somehow just ended back up at being concerned about his involvement in protecting you.   
  
If you tried to celebrate the fact that your brother was finally home safe, you found yourself remembering the look of shock on Seonghwa’s handsome features when you’d called him out to help you hold up San.   
  
And if you tried to think about the horrible way that Hongjoong had stared at you, as if he knew more secrets about you than you even knew, like he thrived off of the knowledge, your body tensed with the reminder of Seonghwa drawing you back against him, his fist curled against your stomach.   
  
Almost without being aware, and yet being entirely too aware, you were dragging yourself both unwillingly and willingly to stand outside your brother, or rather now Seonghwa’s, room. Your fist hovered hesitantly in the air between you and thick slab of wood, fighting a war with your mind not to knock against it.   
  
Even if he did open the door to you, what were you going to say to him?   
  
‘Hi, I think I like you.’ Didn’t quite seem to cut it and anything more than that was overdoing it, and you weren’t even sure how he was going to react to hearing that regardless. It was clear that he cared about you, and he had kissed you, that had to mean something.   
  
And yet you couldn’t quite shake the haunted look in his eyes when he’d told you that you deserved so much better. He’d been sincere, he believed in his own words while your body had adamantly and silently disagreed with the weight of them.   
  
But he had to of had a reason for saying it.   
  
Your body deflated somewhat and finally your fist dropped slowly back to your side, sighing quietly.   
  
It would be just your luck to start falling for someone who maybe had more problems than you did.   
  
You were halfway through turning away from his door, with the intention to go to your own room and attempt to catch up on some sleep, when the lock clicked behind you and the door swung open.   
  
Caught by surprise you twisted to stare, coming face to face with a topless Seonghwa, who looked for once equally as surprised as you did.   
  
“Y/n?” He blinked, looking around you, almost as if expecting there to be someone else behind you. You resisted the urge to point out to him that the only other person in the apartment now was San, who had more than likely collapsed somewhere asleep by now.   
  
“Hi,” You started, biting your tongue when you realised you had no explanation to give him for why you had been standing outside his door. He raised a single eyebrow, focused now completely on you, having determined there was nobody else with you.   
  
“Is everything okay?” He asked slowly, a scratchiness to his voice that you assumed meant he’d been trying to get some rest. He leaned himself against the doorway, peering at you patiently while you opened and closed your mouth like an idiot.   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s all good.” You nodded your head quickly and started to back away, swallowing heavily. It was an effort to keep your gaze from wandering from his face down to his sculpted body and your cheeks burned the harder you tried to avoid it.   
  
“Are you sure?” He persisted, taking a step forward after you, cocking his head to the side.   
  
“God, don’t-” You threw up a hand to cover your eyes, having had too much of a lot of things today to deal with avoiding looking at him now. “Can you just put a shirt on.”   
  
Even with your fingers splayed across your vision, you could still see the perfect slopes of his bare chest as if you still had your eyes wide open and trained on them, right down the way his skin shone beneath the lights behind his shoulder.   
  
You heard him chuckle and felt his hand tug at your wrist.   
  
“Okay you definitely didn’t put a shirt on between when I asked and now so I’m not looking at you.” You said tightly, jerking away from his light grip and stumbling somewhat without your vision to guide you.   
  
“You’ve seen me without a shirt before, what’s the big deal?” His voice followed you as your free hand grabbed blindly at the wall and used it to help your body move in what you hoped was the direction of your room.   
  
Anything to escape him.   
  
“It just is okay!” You snapped, wishing desperately that by the time you reached your doorway he’d have given up. You couldn’t even understand what he found so fun about torturing you like this.   
  
You were almost positive if it were the other way around, his cool facade would drop just as quickly and he’d be just as, if not more, flustered.   
  
A sigh of relief left you when you finally felt your fingers glide over the familiar dented wood of your door and you gave it a hefty shove until it swung wide open.   
  
Your feet carried you in and you didn’t waste time in slamming the door behind you, almost confident that there was no way that Seonghwa would or could have followed you in.   
  
When it was closed you dropped your hand and pressed your forehead against the wood, which was neither cool nor warm to the touch, and groaned quietly.   
  
What a mistake it had been to stand outside his door with absolutely no plans on what to say to him and no backup way out of a confrontation.   
  
“What’s wrong?” Warm air blasted the back of your neck and you froze, body tense against the door.   
  
“Seonghwa?”   
  
But you’d known the moment the voice came that it wasn’t Park Seonghwa’s. You knew it too well, had heard it too recently to believe with any part of you that the deep tremor of this voice was his.  
  
But you’d hoped despite yourself that it was, that somehow you were wrong, because if not then there was someone else in your room with you, directly behind you in fact.   
  
Your room wasn’t a large space, and you certainly weren’t skilled enough to protect yourself in it even if it were big enough for you to actually escape the presence of this invader.   
  
“Not quite, sorry.” The voice chuckled, not sounding at all sorry.   
  
There was something about the voice that you could have sworn rang with familiarity to you, whoever it was definitely _knew_ you.   
  
After a moment of holding your breath and debating with yourself, you finally twisted around to face the man behind you, a frightened squeak leaving you at the sight of him.   
  
Of course it made sense that it was him. He’d been too quiet the first time you’d met, and yet filled with a dangerous air, not quite enough that he’d outrightly disobey his leader…   
  
His hand slammed, palm flat, into the door beside your head, making you jump and your eyes widen although all sound remain locked in your throat.   
  
Clearly his desire to obey whatever orders Hongjoong had given him far outweighed his desire to be the person he was ;intimidating and reckless, recklessly driven towards whatever his true desire was.   
  
And right now, you were pretty sure you were his desire, although why you couldn’t fathom.   
  
“Y-Yeosang.” You stuttered out his name, jaw locking around the end of his name when he leaned unbearably close to you, a smirk twisting his mouth.   
  
“You remember me then.” He said with a satisfied hum, one of his fingers flicking a few strands of your hair from your neck, where his fingertips found your pulse and held them there.   
  
“Of course I do.” You managed to get out, knowing that with his fingers over the point of your neck that held your pulse, he’d know exactly how frightened you were of him right now.   
  
His smirk widened and he withdrew his hand with a nod, stepping back and giving you space to let out a trembling breath.   
  
“What are you doing here? What do you want?” You snapped, fingers ghosting to your neck where the scar remained of your last encounter with Yeosang and his friends.   
  
As brave as you wanted to be right now, your body was trembling in every way it could right now and your voice constricted tightly around your desire to scream out for Seonghwa or San.   
  
The only thing that stopped you was that if you called them in here, you put them in danger. You didn’t know Yeosang, he was even more unpredictable than his own leader was and every bit as terrifying.  
  
Yeosang observed you silently for a few minutes through narrowed eyes, looking almost as if he were bored of you, although it had been him to come seeking you not the other way around.   
  
So you tried again, praying that this time around there was more stability to your voice as you drew yourself off the door and straightened up.   
  
“Hongjoong was already here. His message was received loud and clear, he didn’t need to send you in here.”   
  
You didn’t believe even for a minute that the handsome man in front of you was here because his leader had sent him, in fact you were pretty sure it would take a lot more than the power Hongjoong held to make the dark eyed man do anything outside of his own desires.   
  
His lips twitched in a smile that was both cold and empty of any real emotion, his head cocking to the side.   
  
“I think we both know thats not why I’m here, Y/n.” Your skin shivered at the sound of your name on his lips. Not only did he make it sound like liquid satin, but he also made it the scariest thing you’d heard since the day you’d been old enough to understand words.   
  
He stepped closer again, his smirk disappearing and a fiery look igniting in those dark eyes that held you captive as you found yourself pressed yet again against your door.   
  
His fingers, smoother than you’d expected, grabbed your chin and held it when you attempted to turn away.   
  
“I’m here for you sweetie.” He all but purred, leaning so close that his lips dragged over your jaw, coming to a rest against the lobe of your ear, which his teeth nipped at, drawing a whine of both fear and want from you.   
  
You hated that even a tiny part of you wanted this man and yet you couldn’t escape it, couldn’t deny the way your body was reacting to just his presence let alone his touch.   
  
“I don’t-” Your voice was so small that he paused for a moment, teeth releasing your ear in his effort to catch your words.   
  
“You don’t what?” He asked lowly, fingers tightening on your chin, earning a small sound of pain and distress out of you that only seemed to egg him on more.   
  
“I don’t want you.” You gasped out, filling your mind with thoughts of Seonghwa. If only thinking about him were enough to draw his presence to your room. The desire to protect him was drowned beneath your fear of what Yeosang was going to do to you if someone didn’t intervene.   
  
You weren’t strong enough to push him off of your body now, let alone fend him out of your room unassisted.   
  
“Liar.” He growled, a chuckle slipping out between the sound, sending a wave of goosebumps through you. Your legs shook, barely holding you up now and you squeezed your eyes closed.   
  
His mouth moved from your ear and for a moment you thought he was giving up, letting you go, before the warmth of breath fanned across your own mouth.   
  
Panic overwhelmed every sense and your eyes flew open, locking desperately with his, trying to find some tiny spark of humanity within him that would respond to your clear signs of denial to his advancements.   
  
But you were staring into pools that had no care about _your_ feelings, this was only the shell of him and he wasn’t going to stop.   
  
“Please don’t.” You choked loudly, hands coming up between you, ready to shove his chest when suddenly the solid force behind your shoulders gave way, sending you flying backwards. 


	9. Chapter 9

_Shit.  
  
_ You were falling.   
  
Except you couldn’t be because just a second ago the door was behind your back, the only thing supporting you and keeping you standing.   
  
But you were definitely falling right now, arms windmilling at your side and feet stumbling backwards at the lack of stability behind you.   
  
And then your back was against something solid and warm and you were being dragged upright by a harsh grip on your shoulders.   
  
“Who the fuck are you?” _Seonghwa.  
  
_ A relieved gasp slid free of your throat and you turned, burying your face into his chest. You’d never been so grateful for his presence.   
  
His arm slid around you like it was second nature to him, holding you away to the side as if he were ready to throw _himself_ at Yeosang. The very idea terrified you to your core though and your hands moved to his wrist, casting him a desperate glance.   
  
Which he ignored, his hard gaze focused entirely on Yeosang who looked neither surprised nor affected by the sudden change in events, his cool eyes staring analytically back at Seonghwa, clearly assessing the level of threat he posed.   
  
With his considerable height advantage and furiously angry attitude matched to Yeosang’s clear stealth and obvious strength, you’d say they were pretty fairly matched. But that was something you didn’t want to have to see be put to the test.   
  
“Seonghwa, please don’t.” You whispered, eyes fixed not on him but Yeosang, who to your surprise looked at you curiously when you spoke to his opponent.   
  
Seonghwa only seemed to tense more the long that Yeosang’s gaze was trained on you and for a moment you felt defeated, convinced that he was about to spring on the dangerous individual.   
  
And then he was stepping back, drawing you back against his side, his eyes never leaving Yeosang’s.   
  
“Get out.” He spat coldly, jerking his head in the direction of the door. To your surprise Yeosang didn’t disagree nor put up a fight, simply slipping silently past the two of you, barely sparing you a glance.   
  
Yeosang had barely fully closed the door behind him when Seonghwa was turning you to face him, his hands cupping your face and inspecting you with a fierce look in his eyes.   
  
“What did he do to you?” He asked, ignoring the fact that his hands held either side of your cheeks so tightly that speaking was nearly impossible. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”   
  
He reeled questions off so fast that even if he weren’t the reason you couldn’t talk, you wouldn’t have been able to answer them all in time anyway.   
  
When he realised that he was holding your face too hard he let go with a guilty start. You reached up to rub where his hands had been before opening your mouth to answer him.   
  
“I’m fine.” You said thickly. He sighed quietly and drew you closer, wrapping his arms right around you and resting his chin atop of your head.   
  
Hesitantly you wrapped your arms around his waist, barely noticing or caring this time that he still didn’t have a shirt on.   
  
“How did you know?” You asked quietly against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat.   
  
“I didn’t… I was coming to.. talk.” He muttered from above you, his heart jumping.  
  
With the sudden realisation that he still had no shirt on you jerked away from him, squeaking out in delayed shock and covering your eyes.   
  
You heard him sigh.   
  
“Why were you coming to talk without your shirt on?” You choked, knowing somewhere remotely in the back of your mind that by this point you were overreacting to his exposed upper body. Yes it was attractive, but no it didn’t have to mean anything.   
  
Firm hands tugged yours away from your eyes, revealing a semi-patient looking Seonghwa with arched eyebrows and curious eyes.   
  
“Because it doesn’t matter. You’ve seen me without my shirt before, you’ve seen the only part of me that I’d ever need or want to hide so there’s no point in caring about it.” For a moments you remained in stunned silence, mind wandering back through your memories to the night that you’d first seen his scar.   
  
Since then you hadn’t seen it again, because it was on his back and anytime he’d had his shirt off he only seemed to be facing you, which somewhat threw off his statement about it being alright.   
  
You crossed your arms and regarded him, satisfied with the instant switch between you while he squirmed slightly below your stare, hands lifting to the back of his neck.   
  
His expression bordered on sheepish, as if he too were realising that despite his speech you hadn’t actually seen his scar since the first time, nor had you been given any kind of explanation for it.   
  
Not that you believed you were owed one.   
  
His scar, his story. His choice whether or not to share it with you.   
  
“It doesn’t matter _why_ I was here, what were _you_ going to do if I wasn’t?” He interrupted your thoughts suddenly, his eyes darting from you to your open doorway. You followed his line of sight, a frown furrowing the skin between your eyes.   
  
Truthfully, you’d all but accepted in the moment before he showed up that there was nothing you could do. No matter how much you struggled, he’d have overpowered you. And the man was cunning enough to know that the very thought of what he could have done to you if you called out for help was enough to scare you out of doing it.   
  
“I don’t know.” You whispered truthfully, looking away with a sickening lurch in your stomach. If Seonghwa hadn’t turned up, Yeosang would have had you completely and there would have been nothing you could have done about it.   
  
And even worse, a part of you, however small, would have enjoyed it.   
  
You clenched your shaking hands into loose fists and closed your eyes around the image of Yeosang’s smirking face, forcing your breathing to slow and even out.   
  
“Hey, it’s okay.” Seonghwa said gently, not quite touching you but hovering his hands just above your shoulders, as if scared that touching you would send you deeper into the spiral of panic.   
  
You didn’t respond to him, instead trying to focus on the sound of his even inhales and exhales.

You’d come, yet again, so close to a dangerous outcome and, yet again, been saved by him.   
  
It felt like you could never live up to him, how could you ever repay him for the things he’d already done for you, let alone what he would no doubt do in the future.   
  
Your feelings for him suddenly felt small and unimportant in the face of all of that, why should he care so much about you?  
  
Why would he wait for you to figure yours out, when he clearly already knew his own well enough to save your ass on multiple different occasions.   
  
But then again, this time had been an accident, the first had been for San and the second… Surely he had just been terrified of the way San would react if he disagreed to doing things for Hongjoong in exchange for your safety.   
  
And yet, in the days that San had been missing and you’d been nothing but a shell of who you were, a corpse walking and breathing but not feeling, Seonghwa had stayed and cared when he could have left with the excuse of finding his friend.   
  
Your eyes flew open, landing on his figure, where he waited just in front of you, ever patient and understanding.   
  
You drew in a deep breath and nodded to yourself, rubbing your arms.   
  
If he could give up so much to see you safe, then the least you could do was stop being so terrified of every tiny thing. You could stop acting helpless and start _trying.  
  
_ “Thankyou.” You said to him, making an attempt to step out from his shadow and towards your room. You were stopped by his tight hold on your wrist, spinning you away from your doorway and further into the hall.   
  
“You’re not sleeping in there tonight.” He said in a voice that was tight with control, so tight that you could tell that there were other things he wanted to say, other things he wanted to feel but was pushing away for your sake.   
  
You wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he could be himself now. But you didn’t, instead facing him and raising an eyebrow.   
  
“Well it’s my room, where else am I going to sleep?”   
  
He didn’t miss a beat in replying, passing you and bringing you down the hallway with him.   
  
“In my room.”   
  
“Excuse me?” You choked, blood rushing to your cheeks the closer you got to his room. He glanced over his shoulder at you, face vacant of many emotions but his worry.   
  
And even that seemed remote, like he was trying his best not to feel it.   
  
“You’re not sleeping in there until I figure out how the hell he got in without any of us knowing.” He turned back to face away and you realised with a sharp inhale that he was just enough in front of you that you could see the scar on his back once again, just barely below the dim lights on the hallway.   
  
The edges were so smooth that there was no way that they could have come from anything without purpose to slice cleanly through things thicker than skin.   
  
Your stomach rolled at the thought, shoulders twitching in empathetic pain.   
  
“It wouldn’t exactly have been that hard, Hwa.” You mumbled when you both finally arrived outside the door to his room and he stiffened visibly.   
  
“We were all pretty preoccupied.” You hurried to add, worried that he had taken your words in a way that you hadn’t intended them. His free hand twisted the door handle to his room, pushing the door open.   
  
“Maybe.” He agreed, pulling you inside in a smooth movement.   
  
For a second, you could only stumble blindly, because his hand was gone from its spot on your wrist to close the door, and a sharp pain shot through your knee when it collided with what you presumed to be the edge of the bed.   
  
Light flooded the room as you hopped backwards from it, half bent to clasp your hands over your aching limb and you froze, eyes sweeping around you and taking in the contents.   
  
You’d been in here plenty of times when San had lived in here.   
  
You’d sat on the edge of that bed more times than you could count and pointed out the various areas of his room that needed improvement or cleaning.   
  
You’d even slept in here once, when he’d been away and you’d found a spider the size of your left fist in one of the corners of your room.   
  
And now it looked almost unrecognisable, tidier than it had ever been but also completely lacking the lived in feeling that it had always had.   
  
Seonghwa was watching you take in the space he spent majority of his time in, you could feel his gaze on you, and yet you couldn’t stop the sense of shock from overwhelming you. You sunk down onto the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the floor, for maybe the first time.   
  
Previously you’d always had to step over a littering of clothes and shoes just to get to the bed.   
  
“I’ll sleep in your room.” Seonghwa said quietly after a while of watching you and your head jerked upwards, eyes finding his in panic.   
  
“No,” You said too loudly, standing up suddenly. He blinked in surprise, mouth opening and closing. “Stay.”   
  
You weren’t sure if your motive behind asking him was entirely to do with you not wanting him spending the night in your bed. A part of you liked the idea of him being in the same room as you, even if it also made you more nervous than words could explain.   
  
“Are you sure?” He asked slowly, staring at you as if expecting you to change your mind.   
  
You were tempted, but then you thought about him sleeping in your bed and you found yourself nodding.   
  
“I’m sure.” He closed his eyes and exhaled heavily, nodding his head slightly.   
  
“Fine. Fine, I’ll stay.”   
  
Your relief was mixed with the sudden realisation.   
  
You were spending the night alone with Park Seonghwa.   
  
Crap. 


End file.
